July 20, 1876

Tuesday, May 16th. -- After nearly six months of unintermitting drouth a fine shower of rain fell last night, and by morning the blinding, suffocating dust of this part of North China had been all transmuted into mud. -- The air was purified and cooled, and nature, despite the unsightly mass of slime and filth that lay upon her bosom, seemed refreshed and glad. After dinner Mr. Pyke called for a couple of donkeys, and we set out on a ramble through the city. These little animals, though not very dignified creatures for rational beings to ride, are quiet, inoffensive and convenient, and decidedly preferable to the ponderous, two wheeled carts which jolt all day long over rough and disagreeable roads. It is easy to get on and off them, easy to ride them, and easy to go with them wherever you want to. They are so little that they scramble in and out among carts and wheelbarrows and through narrow streets and passages where no horseman could go; and if they are disposed to be indolent, the driver behind you with his whip-lash relieves you of all exertion in urging them on.

The places of chief interest in and about Tientsin -- to the foreigner at least -- are those which were the scenes of the massacre of June 21st, 1870. In this massacre were involved all the French Catholics in the city, against whom the Chinese had, and still have, a special hatred. The arrogance and superciliousness of the Romish priests, who assume for themselves the dignity and authority of mandarins, and in all cases of litigation among their converts insist that the decrees of their church shall be heard in preference to the decision of the judicial magistrate, have been the chief source of this hostility. And much of the opposition which Protestant Christianity meets with in China to-day, is owing to the unfavorable and well grounded impression which the people have formed of the Romish church. We first visited the spot where the most horrible butchery took place, that of the Sisters of Charity, who occupied a Home just off the main street, with two or three hundred Chinese children under their care. It was in reference to these children that those inflammatory reports concerning the digging out of eyes and hearts for medical purposes, etc., were circulated, which had so much to do in exciting the mob. This horrid practice is not unknown in Chinese pharmacopoeia and there are always base villains to be found who attribute it to foreigners who have charge of native children in their schools. A short time previous to the riot an epidemic had broken out in the Home, and many of the children died. Day after day, the little coffins were carried out, and the ignorant spectators gave easy credence to the frightful tales which began to be whispered abroad. On the forenoon of the day mentioned a mob began to collect around both the Sisters' Home and the French Consulate, and by noon some 6,000 or 7,000 of the infuriated rabble were goading each other on to the work of destruction. Forcing their way into the premises occupied by the unfortunate nuns, they seized these devoted women one after another, and after putting them to the most fiendish tortures, threw their mangled bodies into the flames of their burning Home. Stories are even told of the nuns having been flayed alive; and the Chinese who were spectators from the surrounding houses say they were stripped one by one, their eyes scooped out, their breasts cut off, and their bodies elevated on spears amid the most demoniac demonstrations of delight. Imagination alone can depict the outrages to which the poor women were subjected at the hands of that fiendish mob. The Chinese are naturally a stolid, impassive race, whose feelings it is hard to arouse; but when once thoroughly aroused there is no length of cruelty to which that same natural stolidity will not carry them. Fortunately most of the children in the Home escaped, but some thirty or forty are said to have been suffocated. A chapel has been erected over the ruins of the nunnery, and memorial services are held in it once a year, on the anniversary of the massacre. It was with deep and solemn interest that I walked about that silent and deserted yard, and gazed through the windows, covered with dust and cobwebs, down into the cold and gloomy basement of the chapel. -- What tales of horror could be unfolded by these crumbling walls, if they were only gifted with the power of speech! Around the yard stand six or eight marble pillars, surmounted each by a rude cross, commemorating the Sisters who here earned the crown of martyrdom. The premises are entirely vacant, and the solemn stillness which prevails throughout the year is broken only by the occasional presence of curious visitors, and the annual memorial service above referred to.

From this spot we proceeded to that on which stood the French Consulate and Roman Catholic Cathedral, both of which were gutted simultaneously with the Sisters' Home. They stood on a point of land at the junction of the Grand Canal and the Peiho, about a half mile distant from the nunnery. The grounds once belonged to the Emperor, who had a palace there, but were seized by the French in the last war, and retained against the wishes of the Chinese Government. On the day of the riot the French Consul, apprehending serious disturbances, proceeded with his assistant in official dress to the Governor's Yamun, or office, and demanded his protection and assistance. After a stormy interview, fruitless in its results, the two men left the Yamun, but were attacked on the street and murdered, and their bodies thrown into the Peiho. The mob then rushed upon the Consulate grounds, killed two priests whom they found in the Cathedral, and also massacred a newly married couple who were stopping as guests at the Consulate, and who had arrived only the day before from France. The buildings were all burnt or razed to the foundation. The spot occupied by the Consulate is now covered by several mounds and tombstones, commemorating the unhappy victims of the massacre, while at the other end of the grounds stand the lofty tower and part of the walls of the Cathedral. The French still retain nominal possession of the place, but nobody stays there except a few native Catholic converts, who watch the premises. A formidable fort has been erected by the Chinese just outside of the grounds, and Li Hung Chang's headquarters are not far distant. A new Cathedral was built by the French after the massacre, at the expense of the Chinese government, but it stands in the Foreign settlement close by the steamer anchorages.

The attacks of the mob were directed entirely against the French, but it was evident that they only wanted courage and a daring leader in order to fall upon and exterminate all the foreigners in the place. Not a gunboat of any nationality was on the Peiho at the time, so that the foreign residents were without any protection. They were naturally greatly alarmed, and retired for safety to the steamer which had arrived from Shanghai the day before. The settlement was threatened for some time, but the rioters did not venture to actually attack it. The incident of the young married pair who had been in the place only twenty-four hours before they were murdered, was very sad; but there was another equally painful. -- A young Russian and his bride were attacked on the other side of the river, as they were returning home from a breakfast party, and being probably mistaken for French were brutally murdered. The riot took place on Tuesday and they had been married only the previous Friday. Three other Russians were behind them, but one of them fortunately could speak Chinese, and saved himself and his companions by making known his nationality.

The fearful outrages of June, 1870, have given to Tientsin a vile notoriety. Many times since then has the foreign community been thrown into alarm by rumors of an intended repetition of the massacre; but the presence of one or more gunboats has effectually prevented any new outbreak. At present there are seven Protestant chapels in the city, which are visited regularly by missionaries, and the audience as a rule are quiet, respectful and attentive. Under the blessing of God many heathen souls are being gathered into the Church, and Christianity is daily making its inroad upon the superstitions and prejudices of the people. "Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee; and the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain."

From this interesting but melancholy spot we rode through the city to the gate, near which is the Municipal Temple. It is a Taoist temple, and the most curious and interesting feature about it is its representations in wax-work of the punishments of the Taoist hell. The deities are all complacent looking personages, seated in rows next the walls of two opposite rooms; before them, on little platforms, stand their guardians and ministers of vengeance, most of whom are horrid black images, as ferocious and repulsive as the devils they personify. Around them are the unhappy spirits of the wicked dead, in bodily form, undergoing the tortures due their offence. One is stretched naked on a rack, while two fiends are in the act of disemboweling him; another, who has already been disemboweled, is fastened upright to a stake, an indescribable expression of horror and pain on his features, while his tormentor is grinning savagely over his entrails, lying in a basin at his feet. -- Another wretch is plunged head foremost up to his waist into the hopper of a hand-mill, which is turned by two horrid devils with a fiendish leer of exultation on their countenances. In a corner of one of the rooms is mass representing rock-work, on the sharp crags and pinnacles of which are impaled a number of miserable beings. The most horrible thing which I saw, however, was a half naked wretch fastened upright in a framework of boards, whom a couple of imps were sawing in two. They had sawed straight through his head and neck down to the middle of his waist, the red streaks of blood marking the progress of the pitiless instrument, and were still sawing away. The awful representations of torture and pain with which the two chambers abound have given to the place the well deserved name of "Temple of Horrors."

We were riding around on our donkeys four hours, and reached the Foreign Settlement at 6 P.M. In the evening I bade adieu to my kind and hospitable friends and went on board the Steamer Chilli, which the next morning was steaming down the crooked Peiho on her way to Shanghai.

A. S.