dence, was dead. These were true, but some time elapsed before it
was officially announced that the Emperor had died on the 22nd of that
month, the very day that Gordon reached Peking himself, and wrote the
following letter:--

"The Emperor is reported to be dead, and his coffin has been sent
for; but this is no proof, since it is the custom to send for a
man's coffin when he is seriously ill, and it is kept for him
even if he lives fifty years after."

Writing again some time after, he says on the grave event: "A great
operation relating to the funeral of Hienfung is going on: a marble
block, weighing sixty tons, is being removed from the quarries to the
west of Peking to the cemetery in the east. It is drawn along upon a
huge truck by six hundred ponies, and proceeds at the rate of four
miles per day. When it arrives it is to be set up and carved into the
shape of an elephant; several other large stones are also _en route_."

But the most interesting expedition Gordon undertook from Tientsin was
that to the Great Wall, and here I must borrow Dr Birkbeck Hill's
graphic description, which is based on a long letter from Gordon
himself:--

"In December 1861, accompanied by Lieutenant Cardew of the 67th
Regiment, he made a tour on horseback to the outer Wall of China
at Kalgan. A Chinese lad of the age of fourteen who knew a little
English acted as their servant and interpreter, while their
baggage was carried in two carts. In the course of their journey
they passed through districts which had never before been visited
by Europeans. Against the northern side of the city of Siuen-hoa
(_not_ Si_n_en-hoa, as printed in Dr Hill's book) they found that
the sand had drifted with the wind till it had formed a sloping
bank so high that it reached to the top of the walls, though they
were nearly twenty feet high. Nature had followed in the steps of
the generals of old, and had cast up a bank against the town. At
Kalgan the Great Wall was with its parapet about 22 feet high and
16 feet broad. Both of its faces were built of bricks, each of
which was three times the size of one of our bricks. The space
between was filled in with rubble. 'It is wonderful,' writes
Colonel Gordon, 'to see the long line of wall stretching over the
hills as far as the eye can reach.' From Kalgan they travelled
westwards to Taitong, where