Our gates are all closed tight, and occasionally we hear thundering down Legation Street as whole troops of half-starved horses, ponies, and donkeys (animals which have been left by their owners in their stables, and which have managed by some means to free themselves, either by looters untying them, or perhaps fire freeing them), dash past at top speed all together in a fury of liberty regained. And dangerous it is for anyone to be on the road when one of these wild troops race down the street, for he will certainly be trampled to death. After a time these mad collections of animals become tame and quiet from hunger and exhaustion, and are willing enough to be led into almost any courtyard. Everything is unusual in this wonderful Peking. This morning I walked with Colonel Churchill and Captain Mallory on the Tartar Wall and down it to the Ha Ta Men Gate, where we went down the Ramp and walked all over the tremendously exposed German and French lines with their barricades and defences. In the German compound the havoc wrought is unimaginable. Whole sides of the houses have been battered down, in some instances one or two walls only left standing; and as for the French compound, every house, every building, and every wall has been levelled to old Mother Earth again, and nothing but the little house of the concierge at the gate, which flies the French flag, is left standing. On seeing this one can understand why the French at the conference not only wanted Peking to be looted and sacked, but to be burnt as well. As the whole place can be inspected now, Mr. Gamewell tells me that four big mines, almost completed, have been found, and, had not the allies arrived when they did, that the following night would have seen some terrific explosions in the British Legation, the Hanlin Library, and on the Tartar Wall even. The mortality of the siege would thus have been doubled by twenty-four hours’ further delay by our troops. Baron von Ketteler’s body was accidentally discovered on the 16th by the Russian troops who were passing near the Tsung-li Yamen, very near the spot where he had been murdered. The body had been thrown into an old wooden box and left. The polite communication which had been sent to the Baroness von Ketteler during the semi-armistice days of the siege that her husband’s body was lying in state at the Tsung-li Yamen was thus proved to be an utter fabrication on their part. To-day his formal obsequies took place in the German Legation, the doyen of the Corps, the Spanish Minister, reading a short address, which was as well put as it was as hard for Baroness von Ketteler to hear. I did not go to the ceremony, however, for I felt as if I had attended more than enough to last me the rest of a long life.