The uprising which began in 1899 was the most extensive China had ever known, and the national government soon found itself helpless. It was incited by the secret society Ye-Ho-Chuan, or “Boxers,” the literal meaning or translation of the name of the society being “Righteousness, Harmony and Fists.” It had about 4,000,000 members in the Empire, and while the society was formed for the purpose of overthrowing the Manchu dynasty, which represented not more than 12,000,000 of the 450,000,000 people of China, its hatred of all foreigners was the predominating spirit. The “Boxers” first began by attacking the outlying foreign mission settlements and then worked their way to the capital of the Empire, leaving a bloody trail behind them. China had always hated the people of outside countries, and never had much to do with them until about the first quarter of the nineteenth century. China traded as little as she could with the outside world. Indeed, there was formerly a law punishing with death any Chinaman who ever visited any other country. “China for the Chinese,” was the watchword, and the lives of foreigners have never been safe in the Flowery Kingdom. China is thousands of years old, and was known to the ancients—the oldest nations of which history makes record. It was mentioned in ancient Sanskrit literature, but little was known of it. It was called by the earliest civilizations as Seres; two thousand or more years ago it was known as Chin, possibly because of the Thsin dynasty, which occupied the throne some two hundred years before Christ. In the Middle Ages it was called Cathay. The probabilities are that the name China comes from the race called Chinas, who lived in the mountains near the Indies, and was a branch of the Dard races. This name probably reached Europe through the Arabs. In 1840 China had her first experience with a civilized power. She had been fighting barbarian nations like herself for many centuries, but had never become embroiled with any of the western countries. England had been doing a large trade with China in opium, to which the mandarins of the Empire, who really ruled the country, objected, and finally they stopped all foreign trade whatever. England declared war and captured Canton, Shanghai and other important cities, after subjecting them to bombardment, and China, to gain peace, being defenseless, paid England an indemnity of $21,000,000 and opened the ports of Amoy, Fuh-Chow-Foo, Ningpo and Shanghai to foreign trade.