ed, now squatted along the edge of the
streets, hanging their weary heads against their rifles, with their
faces very white from too much sentry-go and too little sleep. There
is little distinction between sailors and Legation people, for we are
all in the same dilemma. On this eventful 20th of June, instead of
being resolute and alert, everybody is merely tired and weakened by a
couple of weeks' watchfulness against Boxers during an unofficial
semi-siege, a state of affairs which has quite unfitted us for fresh
strains. Yet beyond our barricades of upturned carts and stolen
building-bricks all was quiet and peaceful, and hardly a thing moves.
It seemed as if we had been only dreaming.... Wandering down beyond
the eastern end of Legation Street, which gives you the most view of
the mysterious world around the great Ha-ta Street, which the Boxers
have conquered, indeed you find everything practically deserted, the
people having learned that it is best to stay indoors until this
crisis is solved in some manner. Occasionally a rag-picker, or some
humble person so little separated from the life hereafter that to push
a trifle closer does not spell much peril, can be seen hooking up rags
and whatnots from the piles of Peking offal. If you speak to him he
gives an unintelligent _pu chih tao_--"I do not know"--and moves
boorishly on. As my old Chinese writer said a week ago, Peking has
never been in such a state of topsy-turvydom since the robber who
unseated the Ming dynasty rushed in two and a half centuries ago....

Going on top of the great Tartar Wall and gazing down on the scene of
devastation and ruin beyond the Ch'ien Men Gate, one can hardly
believe one's eyes, for where there was once a mighty bustle one now
sees thousands of houses with nothing but their walls standing and
charred timbers strewing the grounds. The great burned tower which
blazed so wondrously a few nights ago is still half standing, its
mighty brickwork too powerful and too proud to succumb totally to the
flames' destroying energy. Gaunt and hollow-eyed, the old Tartar tower
surveys the scene somewhat contemptuously, as if saying that the pigmy
men of to-day are far removed from the paladins of old and their
works....

Quiet and perfectly silent it all looks--but below the tower, and,
indeed, on all sides as far as the eyes can see, some search shows
little ants of men are at work in the ruins--not moving much, but
bobbing up and down with unendin