PROLOGUE
It was for war correspondents to describe Sir "j Edward Seymour's "Forlorn Hope" in answer to despairing telegrams, the siege and relief of Tientsin and Peking, together with the subsequent punitive expeditions so-called. Why and how the Boxer Movement arose in China is still a ^oblem to many minds. As some help to its solution I here attempt to picture in oudine the condition of things before the uprising of 1900, that Annus Funestus, and that especially in relation to us foreigners in China, just as in InttmvUe China I tried to portray the Chinese people as far as possible apart from foreigners. Beginning with the decay of Peking, the stagnation of Taku, I here seek to reproduce in black and white the picturesqueness and the mediaeval usages, the drowsy dulness, then unexplained attacks on the part of the Chinese, the equally unexplained absence of all measures on the part of the British Government to prevent their recurrence; then again the friendliness of the peoplei the amiability of the officials, indications of progress on all sides, till on a sudden came the thunderclap of 1900, with here and there in relief against the blackness of the following Typhoon the sympathetic and self-sacrificing kindliness of here an official, there a peasant, here a trembling, ignorant woman, there an educated man.
May those who read these pages gain at least some insight into the many redeeming qualities of that last survival from the Past of Nineveh and Babylon, of Alexandria and Pompeii — ^the Chinese nation of to-day.
Alicia Bewicke Little
序言（PROLOGUE）
戰地記者們描述了愛德華·西摩爵士（Sir Edward Seymour）在接到絕望的電報後發起的“絕望突擊”（"Forlorn Hope"），以及天津和北京的圍困與解救行動，還有隨後的所謂懲罰性遠征。為什麼義和團運動會在中國爆發，它是如何發展的，至今仍困擾著許多人。為了幫助理解這個問題，我在此嘗試勾勒出1900年義和團運動前的情況，特別是與我們外國人在華生活的相關情況，我在《幕後的中國》（Intimate China）一書中，也同樣盡量描述哪些遠離外國人影響中國人。
我從描述北京的衰敗和大沽（Taku）的停滯開始，試圖通過文字再現當時的風貌和舊時代的習俗，那時生活的昏昏沉沉、沉悶無聊，以及當時無法理解的中國人對外國人的攻擊，同時也描述了英國政府在面對這些襲擊時為何沒有採取任何措施來防止它們再次發生。接著，我描繪了當時中國人民的友善、官員的和藹可親，以及社會各方面的進步跡象。直到1900年，這些跡象突然被打斷，就像一聲巨雷，隨後的混亂中，偶爾還能看到某位官員的同情心與自我犧牲精神，某位農民的友善，某位害怕無知的婦女，或某位有教養的男子的善良。
希望讀者在閱讀這些文字後，能夠更深入地了解這個延續至今的古老文明——中國，它與尼尼微、巴比倫、亞歷山大和龐貝等曾經輝煌但已消逝的文明不同，仍然以其獨特的文化與民族精神在現代世界中繼續存在。
艾麗西亞·比威克·利特爾（Alicia Bewicke Little）