ese rebels had committed during their raid were
frightful; in every village there were from ten to sixty dead,
either women--frightfully mutilated--old men, or small children.
I do not regret the fate of these rebels. I have no talent for
description, but the scenes I have witnessed of misery are
something dreadful, and I must say that your wish for me to
return with the work incomplete would not be expressed if you saw
the state of these poor people. The horrible furtive looks of the
wretched inhabitants hovering around one's boat haunts me, and
the knowledge of their want of nourishment would sicken anyone.
They are like wolves. The dead lie where they fall, and are in
some cases trodden quite flat by the passers-by. I hope to get
the Shanghai people to assist, but they do not _see_ these
things, and to _read_ that there are human beings eating human
flesh produces less effect than if they saw the corpses from
which that flesh is cut. There is one thing I promise you, and
that is, that as soon as I can leave this service, I will do so;
but I will not be led to do what may cause great disasters for
the sake of getting out of the dangers, which, in my opinion, are
no greater in action than in barracks. My leg is all right; the
eleventh day after I received the wound I was up, and by the
fifteenth day I could walk well. The ball went through the thick
part of the leg, just below the knee."

Having thus cleared the district due north of Wusieh, Gordon proceeded
against the main Taeping position at Chanchufu, north-west of that
place, and on the Grand Canal. Here Chung Wang had fortified thirty
stockades, and commanded in person. On inspecting it, Gordon found it
so strong that he summoned up his troops from Liyang, and it was not
until 22nd April, ten days after Waisso, that he had collected all his
force of 4000 men for the attack. On the very day he accomplished this
the Imperialists alone attacked some stockades outside the West Gate,
and carried them by a heavy and unnecessary loss of life. Their
defenders, instead of retreating into Chanchufu, fled northwards to
their next possession, at Tayan. The same night part of the garrison
left behind made a _sortie_, but Gordon was apprised of it, and it was
easily repulsed. The next day he captured all the stockades on the
southern, or, more correctly, the western si