e who understand
the language! I never had so difficult a matter to arrange.... Each
man has his own way of seeing things, and the real difficulties of the
question being enormous, and the mysteries of the Chinese character
almost unfathomable,... the problem is well nigh insoluble. However
yesterday we seemed to make some progress towards an understanding. We
walked up to the front along the wall as usual, and very hot it was;
but we returned through the town itself with the General and Admiral
and a large escort. I rode on a pony. It was a strange and sad sight.
The wretched-looking single-storied houses on either side of the
narrow streets almost all shut up, only a few people making their
appearance, and these for the most part wan and haggard, and here and
there places which the fire from our ships had destroyed, all
presented a very melancholy spectacle; and one could hardly help
asking one's self, with some disgust, whether it was worth while to
make all the row which we have been making, for the sake of getting
into this miserable place. However, I presume that the better part of
the population have either fled or hid themselves. I daresay if they
had returned, and the shops had been opened, the aspect of the town
would have been different.

[Sidenote: Establishment of a joint tribunal.]

_January 9th._--Yesterday I went up again to the front without Gros,
and pressed matters forward towards a solution. The result was, that
my plan of getting the Governor of the province to consent to return
to his Yamun and resume his functions, a board of our officers,
supported by a large body of troops, being appointed to inhabit his
Yamun with him, and to aid him in the maintenance of order,
prevailed.... To-day we went, Gros and I, in great procession to the
Governor's Yamun, to reinstate him in his office on the above
conditions. We were carried in chairs through the town, attended by a
large escort. The city seemed fuller of people than on the occasion of
my former visit, and they looked more cheerful.

_January 10th._--By a ludicrous mistake, no orders had been given to
release the Governor and Tartar General, so that, after waiting for
them for an hour, we heard that the sentry would not let them leave
the room in which they were confined. The consequence was that it was
getting