All the hope that has been caused by seeing nightly green lights that look like search-lights is falling very low, because they have not got nearer at all, which would not be the case were they signals used by our approaching troops. Where can the troops be? Are all the Governments so gullible as to believe the Chinese Ministers in their different countries, who are probably assuring them of our safety, or can they be so criminally selfish as to be fighting diplomatically among themselves as to what each Power shall have in the way of future sharing of China after our rescue? The consensus of opinion among the Ministers here is that the different nations will agree to allow the Japanese or the Russians, who control large fighting forces within a week’s march of Peking, to send a relief column to Peking with the sole object of relieving their eleven Ministers Plenipotentiary, exacting a promise that on this expedition there should be no _coup d’état_ or punitive measures, but simply relief of their distressed representatives. Weeks ago we were told to come to the British compound for a day or two, but as yet there is not a sign of help. Every day deaths occur of our best fighting men and officers, and the question is, with men going in this painfully regular way, how long can we hold out? Soon women and children will constitute the only forces of the compound. The deaths each day are fortunately small in number, but a great many are wounded, some very badly, which make them as good as dead as far as fighting goes. The Russian officer in command says that we cannot hold out longer than for one week at the most, but more sanguine people say that, with good luck, three weeks can be tided over. Captain Myers’s wound of his spear-thrust is not as slight as was expected, and he has much fever. It was very sad to-day to see the funeral of another baby. The second funeral of the day was one of the most popular and attractive of the Customs students. He was shot through the liver while cutting down a tree near the Hanlin Library, and died two hours later. Fifty men are in the hospital, twelve have been killed, and there are a few convalescents walking about the compound. We did not say so at the time, but we can say now, thank Heaven! the Chinese have tried to fire us on all sides, so that in this way there are very few places or houses where the Chinese, who are sniping at near range, can secure cover. By means of terrific efforts, in which everybody joined, to extinguish the fires, serious harm was averted, although our enormous wall, giving on to the Mongolian Market Place, had a breach in it that took a great deal of hard work on the part of the men to rebuild, or, I should say, to mend, with rocks and sandbags, in such a way as to make it safe.