the city. You could get
them for nothing. Some one who had some gold in his pocket got an
enormous mass for a hundred francs. The next day he was offered ten
times the amount he had paid. In the dark he had purchased priceless
fabrics from the Hangchow looms, which fetch anything in Europe. Great
quantities of things were offered for sale after that as quickly as
they could be dragged from haversacks and knapsacks. Everybody had
things for sale. We heard then that everything had been looted by the
troops from the sea right up to Peking; that all the men had got
badly out of hand in the Tientsin native city, which had been picked
as clean as a bone; and that hundreds of terrible outrages had come to
light. Every village on the line of march from Tientsin had been
treated in the same way. Perhaps it was because there had been so
little fighting that there had been so much looting.

The very next morning a decision was arrived at to send away all
non-combatants in the Legation lines as quickly as possible from such
scenes--to let them breathe an air uncontaminated by such ruin and
devastation and rotting corpses--to escape from this cursed bondage of
brick lines. There would be a caravan formed down to Tungchow, which
is fifteen miles away, and then river transport. To provide
conveyances for these fifteen miles of road, people would have to
sally forth and help themselves; near the Legations there was
absolutely nothing left. We must hustle for ourselves.... The same men
who have done all the work would have to do this.

I shall never forget the renewed sense of freedom when I went out the
next morning with my men and some others I picked up, this time boldly
striking into the rich quarter in the eastern suburbs of the Tartar
city and leaving the garrisoned area far behind. It was something to
ride out without having to take cover at every turning.... The first
part of our route was the same as that of my scouting expedition made
so few days before. But this time we went forward so quickly to the
main streets beyond the white ruins of the Austrian Legation that it
seemed incredible that we should have wasted so much time covering the
ground before. That shows what danger means. I alone was mounted,
riding the old pony I had commandeered the day before; my men were on
foot and ran pantingly alongside. We were so keen!

For half a mile or so we met occasional detachments of European
troops, an odd enough _pot-pourri_ of