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A Messenger who went to Tientsin and back aged 14

Date

Authors

Photographer: Giles Family

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University

Abstract

Description

"....on 4 July [1900] a young boy from Shantung, well-known to some of the American missionaries, volunteered to try to get through [the seige of the Peking legations]. MacDonald gave him a letter to Mr Carles, the British Consul in Tientsin, sewn up in a piece of oilcloth. The whole package measured no more than an inch long and half an inch wide.... he concealed it in a rice bowl so that 'when the charitable filled up his bowl of rice, they helped to conceal the urgent cry for help sent out by the besieged'. He was to be the first messenger to reach Tientsin since late June [1900], slipping through the allied sentries into the foreign settlement on 21 July after an eventful journey." Diana Preston (1999)

Keywords

Citation

Source

Menzies Very Large Rare Book 2233396

Type

Book Title

Giles Family Albums

Entity type

Access Statement

Open Access

License Rights

This image is published under a CC-BY licence.

DOI

Restricted until

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