I had expected General Chaffee would give me an order to enter by the Ch’ien Men Gate and its continuing three gates, and pass practically through our own lines, upon his hearing that I wished to do so. He was usually so amiable when I asked him for anything, that this time, much to my surprise, he became very angry, and, pounding his fist on the table, he assured me that he would not allow me to even ride through the Imperial City, giving as his refusal the only reason that “there were sights of war there which no American girl should see,” and pounding his fist a second time to emphasize the fact. All of which was ridiculous, as the sights of war referred to were simply the heaps of corpses which surrounded the different gates of the Imperial City by which the allies had entered, and, as a consequence of the defeat of the Chinese, the dead were still there. He was right, inasmuch as these are not pretty things to see; but as I had been in the midst of war for two months, and had seen all these things many times, I did not feel that it was just in him to deny me the privilege now of being able to get a bird’s-eye view of this wonderful park, which he might have done by allowing a special permit to go round it on horseback before leaving. But one can’t fuss with people who deny you things for what they think is for your own good, especially when the person in question happens to be General Chaffee. After this sad refusal, the first person I met was Baron von Rahden, who, on hearing my tale of woe, was delighted to hear that it was one which was so easy to remedy. As General Chaffee had the power to write a permit to go into the Forbidden City, so had the Russian Commander-in-Chief. He flew off, and in a few minutes returned, bearing an order from the headquarters of the Russian troops giving him power to escort me through the Imperial City, with a company of Cossacks as a military guard, so that we could come to no possible harm from snipers or marauding parties.