Horse is the principal article of diet. Several days after we arrived here the beef was eaten up, and there remained but a small flock of sheep, which fortunately was brought here while there was time. There are 1,293 Europeans to feed daily in this compound, and rice is the dish _par excellence_ for everyone. Mutton, however, is distributed to the sick, women and children, to the extent of a quarter of a pound apiece every third day. There are a lot of horses, ponies, and mules in the compound which we have kept alive by feeding with straw, and every day two animals have been slaughtered and distributed among the messes. Then the coolies have a kitchen, where they can come whenever their work makes it possible, and they get rice and horse-meat. It is queer to see how many people acknowledge that they like it, having eaten it now for two weeks. Of course, a great deal depends upon the animal, but they agree that mule and pony are better than horse. Some people even who have among their stores plenty of canned or tinned beef prefer the fresh horse-meat. At our mess, however, we have a prejudice against it, and as long as we continue to have the tinned beef we will not send for our share of the animal. The May races having come off before the siege, most of the diplomats had not disposed of their horses and polo ponies, and the all-important question now is not if “Cochon” will win more cups in future, but if his steaks will be tender. Things are so queer now. The one cow which still gives a small amount of milk, needless to say, has not been killed for her beef, but is carefully tended for her baby-saving fluid. The president of the largest and most influential bank in Peking, besieged here with us, has received a wound which absolutely incapacitates him for active work. He can only hobble around on a crutch. He has volunteered to tend “Miss Cow” and assist her to find the few blades of grass which are still to be had. I went with an officer to the Hanlin Library, where the sniping is still constant, but not quite as severe as it was, owing to the good barricades with which we have strengthened the position. The Chinese fired this wonderful library of Peking so ruthlessly that nothing is left there but thousands of charred and burnt books, and some evidences of the charming courtyard and grass plot where the old Chinese savants used to go and read the ancient manuscripts in Sanskrit and other dead languages. Here I found the bank president, a great power in China in ordinary times, quietly tending the cow, watching her from an antique stone bench. Surely the shade of some ancient philosopher must be shocked into asking himself, “And what have we here?”