If I live to be a thousand, I could never see a queerer collection of people working together to extinguish a fire, and with the object to save themselves from a massacre—coolies, missionaries, soldiers, and Ministers Plenipotentiary working and straining every muscle for the same object. Surely Peking never before saw such unanimity of her foreign residents. I was in that line of men and women passing buckets, and so was the wife of the French Minister, and many other well-known women. [Illustration: MRS. R. S. HOOKER ] Fargo Squiers, Dr. Martin, and Dr. Poole, surgeon for the British Legation, were three soot-covered people who came to our rooms after the fire was entirely out,—which meant they had worked desperately for many hours without stopping. To say they were thirsty would not be truthful—they were parched. Dr. Poole whispered that the only cup he knew big enough to quench his thirst was a big loving-cup that was in a small closet in a corner of the room (this house having been his before the siege), and that if I would fill it with Apollinaris he would put in the whisky. I filled my order, and he poured out about four fingers of Scotch into the bottom of that big loving-cup, and as he drank it slowly, holding it by both hands, I thought I had never seen such thankful eyes as were his during that long and pleasant well-earned drink. Again to-day thousands of sandbags have been made by the women. Shooting continues all the time, and to-day a cannon was fired from the Ch’ien Men Gate, which we hope may mean that our troops are coming and the Chinese resisting them. Prince Ching is supposed to have under his command in China fifty thousand troops, and he must be friendly to us, or we feel he would have ordered half of his troops to Peking before this to finish us. It is stated that some of them have shot at the Boxers, but this is hardly credible. Prince Ching is a Prince of the first Order, and head of the Tsung-li Yamen. Dr. Morrison is the most attractive at our impromptu mess; he works wherever a strong man is needed, and he is as dirty, happy, and healthy a hero as one could find anywhere. _June 24._ Two weeks ago to-day the troops started from Tien-tsin. Yesterday by 11.30 a.m. the Hanlin Library, directly behind Sir Claude’s house in the compound, was fired by the Chinese, and the way we fought the flames I described yesterday, only perhaps the men felt a little stronger. They have succeeded once in putting out an enormous fire, so why should they not be able to do so to-day? This time, however, the wind was against us, so that from the morning until seven o’clock at night we were fighting it desperately.