Weihaiwei, then, is entirely destitute of troops and of fortifications, and in the long months of winter--when there is not so much as a torpedo-boat in the harbour--the place is practically at the mercy of any band of robbers that happened to regard it with a covetous eye. This state of things cannot be regarded as ideally good: yet--to touch upon a matter that might once have been regarded as bearing on politics, but is now a mere matter of history--it may be admitted that from the imperial point of view the abolition of the Chinese Regiment was a wise step. This view is not shared by most Englishmen in China: and as for the British officers, who had given several of the best years of their lives to the training of that regiment, and had learned to take in it a most justifiable pride, one can easily understand how bitter must have been their feelings of dismay and disappointment when they heard of the War Office's decision. Similar feelings, perhaps, may have agitated the mind of the "First Emperor" when the beautiful bridge to Fairyland, on which he had spent so much time and energy, began to crumble away before his sorrowing eyes. The position of the Chinese Regiment was not analogous to that of the native troops in India and in our other large imperial possessions. Its very existence was anomalous. The great majority of its men were recruited not in British but in Chinese territory,[56] and as their employment against a European enemy of Great Britain was scarcely conceivable, their only function could have been to fight against their own countrymen or other Orientals.