ompanied me
in my peregrinations, had occupied an apartment. There was nothing the
matter with the front, but a neat hole in the side marked the passage of
a projectile which had traversed the building and exploded in the
adjoining house, now a mound of brick-bats and matchwood. One half of a
large establishment in Prince Michael Street was completely wrecked, but
the other half was undamaged, and rolls of textile fabrics were in order
on their shelves or piled on counters. The best shops are in this
street, and much havoc has been wrought.

"I picked up spherical shrapnel bullets on several premises. Shrapnel
has no battering force. Its object is to kill or disable men. It can do
no harm to walls. Its employment in this instance was a wanton act
intended to inspire terror and doubtless augmented the loss of life
among the citizens.

"The principal hotel, the Moskwa, situated at the highest part of the
town, has been devastated partially within, but the framework of the
building is intact. On the other side of the street a row of houses far
less conspicuous has been demolished. In one street we met a little girl
of 12 coming out of a house opposite to one which was a heap of ruins.
We asked her if she had seen it destroyed. She said she had and was very
frightened. Shortly afterward a shell fell in their own garden; then
they ran away and took refuge with friends at the other end of the town.
An old woman had a stall containing tins of shoe polish and other
trifles. A jumble of charred wood and twisted iron behind had been her
shop. The caretaker at the house occupied by M. Nikovitz, a cheerful old
dame, told us how she had hid herself at the other end of the long
garden, but it was terrible.

"We asked some urchins, who would be at school in normal times, but
whose occupation and delight are now to hold officers' horses, if they
were not frightened. 'At first,' they replied, 'but not afterward. They
make a great noise, but they never catch us, and we do not mind
them--the shells.' A boy of 12, who was carrying on his father's
hair-dressing business single-handed during the latter's absence on
service, expressed a similar opinion.

"I am told that about 3,000 people remained, out of the normal
population of 100,000, during the bombardment. I cannot ascertain the
number of killed and injured, but it certainly runs into the hundreds.
Those of the inhabitants who left the city but remained in the
neighborhood returned