We all felt somewhat mockingly inclined, we Americans, English, and Japanese, looking on from behind the blinds we so often pushed aside to see better. But the worst of it all was, it was all well done; the men appeared well drilled; and though, as the rain fell more and more, the Tigers no longer bounded as at first, and even their stride lost somewhat of its stealth in the general slipperiness, yet the heartrending thought to all of us was, the thing was meant to be real. As a spectacle it was so successful! But those poor men down there would march in that style against modern weapons of precision, used in accordance with modern tactics, and of course had _run away_! "Poor old China! Poor old China!" rose like a chorus from the pitiful ones. And we wondered, Did the Viceroy realise what he was looking on at? Did his cheeks burn, as our own did? Or did he really know no better, and think it a fine sight, as it was?
The whole wound up with a display on the part of the archers. Silken-clad young men with official red silk-tasselled caps, and the corners of their long gowns tucked up, followed each by a soldier-servant holding above the heads of the crowd a quiver full of arrows, made their way up to the Viceregal tribune, and shot at a target white and long-shaped with three red bulls'-eyes one above the other. Each time they did so a big, very big drum was beaten, and a man sprang forward, and picked up the arrow, holding it very ostentatiously at arm's-length. The theatrical effect again was very good; but as far as we could any of us see not one hit any of the bulls'-eyes, and through opera-glasses the paper surface appeared intact, when the Viceroy got into his chair and went off in much the same state as he had come; only every one was wet through now, and the poor little boys with the Reeves' feathers looked particularly deplorable. On a rough computation, on this occasion at Chungking five hundred soldiers turned out, three hundred of whom, including forty banner-men, were versed in foreign drill and wore scarlet waistcoats. The others were either tigers or orange-clad.
As to the Viceroy, he must have been used to it; for was he not going round the province from Fu city to Fu city reviewing troops? and did it not always rain? He therefore must be accustomed to the archers' consequent failures. But we wondered somewhat sorrowfully whether we had had the great privilege of assisting at one of the last Viceregal reviews of the kind, one of the last survivals of antediluvian periods. All nations have passed through similar stages, as the Scottish sword-dances, Highland flings, and English beefeaters remind us. Or could it be that China is going to persist in living still longer in the Middle Ages? In the one case--for we Europeans are nothing, if we are not practical--let us at once buy up one of the painted shields, and Tiger uniforms, and too often brandished banners with their tribes of attended bannerets. In the other, let us stand back, and look aside, lest our hearts should be too much torn by pity when the great catastrophe comes, and China meets a foe who follows his thrusts home, and is determined to reap the full fruit of his victories.