g events had been following each other in quick
succession down on level ground, the grim Tartar Wall has been at once
our salvation and destroyer of men. The Germans have been having a
terrible time, and although they have borne themselves with soldiery
composure, they have been at last driven clean down with
heart-breaking losses. The guns, which the Chinese had been firing
from the great Ha-ta Gate half a mile off, were advanced during the
night of the 30th June to within a hundred yards of the imperfect
German defences, and on the 1st of July four marines were killed and
six wounded out of a post of fifteen men with nerve-shaking rapidity.
The Chinese soldiers, then swarming forward under the Tartar Wall
itself, threatened the little blockhouse at the base, which kept up
connection with the Club and the German Legation line of barricades,
and soon there was no help for it, the eastern Tartar Wall posts had
to be abandoned. With the German retirement the Americans abandoned
their positions facing west and rushed down to safety below. It cannot
be said that the Americans are afraid; they have merely realised from
the beginning what a few of us have understood. The motley crowd
gathered in the British Legation, as well as our commander-in-chief,
were much stirred by the American retirement, for they already saw
themselves directly bombarded from the menacing height of the city
walls--a prospect which can enchant no one, as the confusion already
reigning would have been worse confounded had all the elderly persons
been given a taste of what the outworks are experiencing. So a council
of war was hastily convened very much after the style of the Boer
commandoes, with everybody talking at once, and it was at once decided
that the blessed Tartar Wall must be at once reoccupied at any cost.
A mixed force, under the command of the American captain, stormed back
again, and with a rush found themselves back in their old quarters
with everything intact. The representation of the American marines had
at last made themselves felt, for British marines took the places of
half the Americans, who were given duty elsewhere. We thought that
that had solved the question.

But this was on the 1st of the month. To-day, the 3rd of the month,
the position became once more untenable, for the Chinese now being
able to attack the wall defences from both sides, were pushing their
barricades rapidly closer and closer until only a few feet separat