The Boxers are principally of two sorts: the ignorant villager and the city loafer or vagabond. The first easily becomes a fanatical enthusiast; the latter has joined simply to obtain loot. When it became an assured fact that the Empress sanctioned the movement the ranks were rapidly filled, because rewards and preferment were held out as inducements to serve, and the majority of China’s population, being poverty-stricken in the extreme, would join any movement that promised an increased income. The Boxer headquarters was the palace of Prince Tuan in Peking. From this place emissaries were sent with instructions, first into Shantung and afterward throughout Chihli, to coöperate with the already-existing secret societies, as well as to organize new companies. Every city, town, and village was visited, the head men consulted, and the young men and boys enrolled. Their gymnastic exercises, from which they derive their name, were taught them, and they were promised that when they had attained perfection they would be given service under the Empress with good pay and rapid promotion. They were told that if they would go regularly through the ceremonies prescribed every day, in from three to six months they would acquire indomitable courage, and would be invulnerable to bullets and sword-cuts, and that the youngest child would be a match for a grown man of the uninitiated. That thousands believed this nonsense there is no doubt; and thousands of little boys from ten years of age upward eagerly enrolled. The exercise consisted of bowing low to the ground, striking the forehead into the earth three times each toward the east, then south, then throwing themselves upon their backs and lying motionless for several minutes, after which they would throw themselves from side to side a number of times, and, finally rising, go through a number of posturings, as though warding off blows and making passes at an enemy. As a uniform they were given a red turban, a red sash to cross the chest, and red “tae tzio,” or wide tape, to tie in the trousers at the ankle. The time set for their uprising was fixed for the Chinese eighth moon, seventeenth day, being two days after the annual “harvest festival,” or pa yueh chieh. The premature explosion of the movement was not anticipated by those who originated it, but it is largely due to its going off at half-cock, so to speak, that enabled the Powers to combat it so readily after they were aware of its existence as a real government agency. Doubtless the government intended before that time to give arms and ammunition to all grown men; but, in the first place, they were to arm themselves with swords and spears only. They were told, among other things, that at the time of their uprising myriads of regiments of angelic soldiers would descend from the skies to assist them in their righteous war against foreigners.