plank. There was nothing
unseemly in it all, death had come so suddenly. The blows had been so
tremendous, and death so instantaneous, that there had been no
bleeding.

It was extraordinary.

Meanwhile, from the Pei-t'ang we can still plainly hear a distant
cannonade sullenly booming in the hot air. We have breathing space,
but they, poor devils are still being thundered at. No one can
understand how they have held out so long.

Our losses, now that we have time to go round and find out accurately,
seem appalling. The French have lost forty-two killed and wounded out
of a force of fifty sailors and sixteen volunteers; the Japanese,
forty-five out of a band of sixty sailors and Japanese and
miscellaneous volunteers; the Germans have thirty killed and wounded
out of fifty-four; and in all there have been one hundred and seventy
casualties of all classes. Many of the slightly wounded have returned
already to their posts, but these men have nothing like the spirit
they had before they were shot.

The shell holes and number of shells fired are also being counted up.
The little Hotel de Pekin, standing high up just behind the French
lines, has been the most struck. It is simply torn to pieces and has
hundreds of holes in it. Altogether some three thousand shells have
been thrown at us and found a lodgment. The wreckage round the outer
fringe is appalling, and in this present calm scarcely believable.
Another three thousand shells will bring everything flat to the
ground.

XVII

DIPLOMACY CONTINUES

24th July, 1900.

* * * * *

The situation is practically unchanged, and there is devilish little
to write about. During the last two or three days no Chinese soldiers
have been coming in to parley with us, except in one or two isolated
instances. Cautious reconnaissances of two or three men creeping out
at a time, pushing out as far as possible, have discovered that the
enemy is nothing like as numerous as he was at the beginning of this
armistice.

Some of his barricades seem even abandoned, and stand lonely and quite
silent without any of the gaudily clothed soldiery to enliven them by
occasionally standing up and waving us their doubtful greetings. But,
curious contradiction, although some barricades have been practically
abandoned, others are being erected very cautiously, very quietly, and
without any ostentation, as if the enemy were preparing for
eventualities which he