has been duly divided up some time ago by the Allied Commanders
into districts--one district being assigned to every Power of
importance that has brought up troops. They are trying to organise
military patrols and a system of police to stop the looting, which
shows no signs of abating. Everybody is crazy now to get more loot.
Every new man says that he only wants a few trifles, but as soon as he
has a few he must, of course, have more, and thus the ball continues
rolling indefinitely.... Nothing will stop it.

Yesterday, just as a man of the British Legation was telling me that
the system was really all right, that it was, in fact, a working
system which would soon be productive of results, and that the bad
part was over, a huge Russian convoy debouched into the street where
we were standing. It was a curious mixture of green-painted Russian
army-waggons and captured Chinese country carts, and every vehicle was
loaded to its maximum capacity with loot. The convoy had come in from
the direction of the Summer Palace, and was accompanied by such a
small escort of infantrymen that I should not have cared to insure
them against counter-attacks on the road from any marauders who might
have seen them in a quiet spot. A dozen mounted men of resolution
could have cut them up.

The carts lumbered along, however, indifferent to every danger, in
their careless disorder. Their drivers were half asleep, and things
kept on dropping to the ground and being smashed to atoms. Just near
us the ropes stretched round one cart became loosened by the rocking
and bumping occasioned by the vile road, and the contents, no longer
held in place, began spilling to the ground. As soon as he had seen
this, the Russian soldier-driver became furious. He would have had to
do a lot of work to repack his load properly, so he soon thought of a
shorter and easier way: he began deliberately throwing overboard his
overload! Three beautiful porcelain vases of enormous size and
priceless value suffered this fate; then some bulky pieces of jade
carved in the form of curious animals. C---- tried to stop the man,
but I only smiled grimly. What did it matter? In Prince Tuan's Palace
I had seen, a couple of days before, the incredible sight of thousands
of pieces of porcelain and baskets full of wonderful _objects de
vertu_ smashed into ten thousand atoms by the soldiery who had first
forced their way there. They only wanted bullion. Porcelain painted in
all the c