ar, in which direction no arrangement for defence
had been made. As a result the forts fell, a large body of Tartar
cavalry, which sought to stop the march of the allies with bows, arrows,
and spears, being taught a lesson in modern war by the explosion of
shells in their ranks. The capture of the forts left the way clear for a
march on the capital, which was at once made, and on the 5th of October,
1860, a European army first came within view of this long-hidden and
mysterious city.

_THE BURNING OF THE SUMMER PALACE._

The "sublime" emperor, the supreme head of the great realm of China and
its hundreds of millions of people, dwells in a magnificence and
seclusion unknown to the monarchs of other lands. His palace enclosure
within the city of Peking, the "Purple Forbidden City," as it is called,
covers over half a square mile of ground, and is surrounded by a wall
forty feet high and more than forty feet thick. Within this sacred
enclosure the Chinese ideas of beauty and magnificence have been
developed to the fullest extent, and the emperor resides in
unapproachable grandeur and state. Outside the city, a few miles to the
north, lies the Summer Palace, another locality on which the Celestial
architects and landscape artists have exhausted their genius in devising
scenes of beauty and charm, and which is similarly walled in from the
common herd. Beyond the Great Wall, on the borders of Tartary, exists
another palatial enclosure, the hunting and pleasure grounds of the
emperor, in the midst of an immense forest abundantly stocked with game.
To the latter his supreme majesty made his way with all haste on hearing
of the rapid approach of the English and French armies. In truth, the
great monarchs of the Manchu dynasty had passed away, and the feeble
reigning emperor lacked the courage to fight for his throne.

On the 5th of October, 1860, the allied armies of England and France
approached the Celestial capital, the officers obtaining their first
view of its far-stretching wall from the tops of some grass-grown
brick-kilns. On the next day the march was resumed, the French force
advancing upon the Summer Palace, where it was hoped the emperor would
be found, the English directing their course towards the city, where a
Tartar picket was driven in and preparations were begun for an assault
in force.

The Summer Palace was found in charge of some three hundred eunuchs,
whom Prince Kung, who had left in all haste