ese were the Americans, in their slouch
hats and khaki suits, lying on the ground and facing the enemy's fire
in the other direction. Held in check by the Germans and Americans in
two feeble posts of a few men each, the Chinese commanders cannot get
their men along the Tartar Wall, and command the Legations that crouch
below. Perhaps that is why playing is only going on and no assaults.
Now sobbing, now gurgling, the bullets pass thickly enough overhead
here, sometimes in dense flights like angry wild-fowl, sometimes
speeding in quick succession after one another as if they were all
late and were frantically endeavouring to make up for lost time.... I
am certain now that this fusillade is increasing from hour to
hour--almost from minute to minute. I do not think playing will soon
be the right expression....

To get to the Russo-American side of the defence, there is no help for
it, you have to make a long voyage; to climb down off the Wall, pass
through the German Legation, cross Legation Street into the French
lines, and work your way slowly through acres of compounds and
deserted houses. Yesterday I would have made a dash, but after
watching the four hundred yards of wall between the German and
American posts, you are easily convinced that even to sneak along,
hugging the protecting parapet, would be an undertaking of utter
foolishness. For as I stood looking, the rank undergrowth, which
Chinese sloth has allowed in past years to grow up along the top of
the Tartar Wall, was apparently alive, now swinging this way, now
swaying that, and sometimes even jumping into the air in pieces as if
galvanised into madness by the rush of bullets. The number of riflemen
is growing fast. So passing into the French Legation, great holes let
you into the next compound, which happens to be that of my friend
C----, the Peking hotel-keeper. Here there is a new sight; everybody
is at work quite peacefully, milling wheat, washing rice, slaughtering
animals, barricading windows--doing everything, in fact at once. This
fellow C---- is an original, who knows how to make his Chinese slave
with the greatest industry and sets them an admirable example himself.
A rather desperate lot are these servants, although most of them are
professed Roman Catholics, and can gabble French learned years ago at
Monseigneur F----'s. And that reminds me: no one has thought of the
gallant bishop during the past few days. That shows how indifferent
the abnormal