torm is brewing over this question of a responsible
commander; and, of course, so long as things remain as they are at
present, there can be no question of an adequate defence. Each
detachment is acting independently and swearing at all the others,
excepting the French and Austrians, for the good reason that as the
Austrians have taken refuge in the French lines they must remain
polite. Half the officers are also at loggerheads; volunteers have
been roaming about at will and sniping at anything they have happened
to see moving in the distance; ammunition is being wasted; there are
great gaps in our defences, which any resolute foe could rush in five
minutes were they so inclined; there is not a single accurate map of
the area we have to defend!

All this I discovered in the course of the morning, and by afternoon I
had nothing better to do than go over to the great Su wang-fu, or
Prince Su's palace grounds, now filled with Chinese refugees, both
Catholic and Protestant, and there watch the Japanese at work. The
Japanese Legation is squashed in between Prince Su's palace grounds
and buildings and the French Legation lines, and, consequently, to be
on the outer rim of our defences the little Japanese have been shifted
north and now hold the northeast side of our quadrilateral. Prince Su,
together with his various wives and concubines and their eunuchs, has
days ago fled inside the Imperial city, abandoning this palace with
its valuables to the tender mercies of the first comers; and thus the
Japanese sailor detachment, reinforced by a couple of dozen Japanese
and other volunteers, has made itself free with everything, and is
holding an immense line of high walls, requiring at least five hundred
men to be made tolerably safe. But they have an extraordinary little
fellow in command, Colonel S----, the military attache. He is awkward
and stiff-legged, as are most Japanese, but he is very much in
earnest, and already understands exactly what he can do and what he
cannot. After a search of many hours, I found here the first evidences
of system. This little man, working quietly, is reducing things to
order, and in the few hours which have gone by since the dreadful
occurrences of yesterday he has succeeded in attending to the thousand
small details which demanded his attention. He is organising his
dependents into a little self-contained camp; he is making the hordes
of converts come to his aid and strengthen his lines; in fact