en heard of yet, and we
cannot discover what has become of the French. It is a nice country,
covered with clumps of trees and suburban villas. The temperature of
the air is cool, but the sun was very hot all day.

[Sidenote: The Summer Palace.]

_Sunday, October 7th._--We hear this morning that the French and our
cavalry have captured the Summer Palace of the Emperor. All the big-
wigs have fled, nothing remains but a portion of the household. We are
told that the _prisoners_ are all in Pekin. ... _Five P.M._--I have
just returned from the Summer Palace. It is really a fine thing, like
an English park--numberless buildings with handsome rooms, and filled
with Chinese _curios_, and handsome clocks, bronzes, &c. But, alas!
such a scene of desolation. The French General came up full of
protestations. He had prevented _looting_ in order that all the
plunder might be divided between the armies, &c. &c. There was not a
room that I saw in which half the things had not been taken away or
broken to pieces. I tried to get a regiment of ours sent to guard the
place, and then sell the things by auction; but it is difficult to get
things done by system in such a case, so some officers are left who
are to fill two or three carts with treasures which are to be sold....
Plundering and devastating a place like this is bad enough, but what
is much worse is the waste and breakage. Out of 1,000,000 _l_. worth
of property, I daresay 50,000 _l_. will not be realised. French
soldiers were destroying in every way the most beautiful silks,
breaking the jade ornaments and porcelain, &c. War is a hateful
business. The more one sees of it, the more one detests it.

[Sidenote: Return of some of the captives.]

Pressed thus closely up to the walls of the capital, the Chinese
Regent--for the Emperor had retired to Tartary, 'being obliged by law to
hunt in the autumn'--yielded at last to save the storming of the city. In
the afternoon of the 8th of October the English and French prisoners
detained in Pekin, numbering eight in all, were sent into the camp.[7]

_October 9th._--Yesterday at 4 P.M., Parkes, Loch, and one of Fane's
Irregulars arrived. With them were four French soldiers and M.
d'Escayrac (the head of a scientific commission). The hands and wrists
of the latter were in a sad condition, they had been so hurt by the
cords ti