The same problem confronted Liu, the viceroy of Nanking; and it was solved by him in the same way. Both viceroys acted in concert; but to which belongs the honour of that wise initiative can never be decided with certainty. The foreign consuls at Nanking claim it for Liu. Mr. Sundius, now British consul at Wuhu, assures me that as Liu read the barbarous decree he exclaimed, "I shall repudiate this as a forgery," adding "I shall not obey, if I have to die for it." His words have a heroic ring; and [Page 228] suggest that his policy was not taken at second-hand. A similar claim has been put forward for Li Hung Chang, who was at that time viceroy at Canton. Is it not probable that the same view of the situation flashed on the minds of all three simultaneously? They were not, like the Peking princes, ignorant Tartars, but Chinese scholars of the highest type. They could not fail to see that compliance with that bloody edict would seal their own doom as well as that of the Empire. Speaking of Chang, Mr. Fraser says: "He had the wit to see that any other course meant ruin." Chang certainly does not hesitate to blow his own trumpet; but I do not suspect him of "drawing the longbow." Having the advantage of being an expert rhymer, he has put his own pretensions into verses which all the school-children in a population of fifty millions are obliged to commit to memory. They run somewhat like this: "In Kengtse (1900) the Boxer robbers went mad, And Peking became for the third time the prey of fire and sword; But the banks of the Great River and the province of Hupei Remained in tranquillity." He adds in a tone of exultation: "The province of Hupei was accordingly exempted From the payment of an indemnity tax, And allowed to spend the amount thus saved In the erection of schoolhouses." In these lines there is not much poetry; but the fact which they commemorate adds one more wreath to [Page 229] a brow already crowned with many laurels, showing how much the viceroy's heart was set on the education of his people. In the interest of the educational movement, I was called to Chang's assistance in 1902. The Imperial University was destroyed in the Boxer War, and, seeing no prospect of its reëstablishment I was on the way to my home in America when, on reaching Vancouver, I found a telegram from Viceroy Chang, asking me to be president of a university which he proposed to open, and to instruct his junior officials in international law. I engaged for three years; and I now look back on my recent campaign in Central China as one of the most interesting passages in a life of over half a century in the Far East.