Surely our condition is desperate. Food is getting scarce. Boxers are mixing openly with the Chinese soldiers, our own soldier boys are getting worn out by constant watching, and no help is nigh. July 18. On June 19, nearly a month ago to-day, the tsung-li-yamen sent the foreign ministers word that, as the admirals at Taku had notified the viceroy of Chihli through the French consul if he opposed troops landing in any required numbers they would take the Taku forts, and as this was really a declaration of war, the foreign ministers were hereby requested to leave Peking, one and all, within twenty-four hours, and proceed to Tientsin en route to their respective countries, a Chinese escort for which was to be provided by the Chinese government. As the railroad had already been destroyed all the way to Tientsin, and the intended relief corps under Admiral Seymour and Captain McCalla had been driven back without being able to reach us, and as we knew the country between Peking and Tientsin was filled with thousands of Boxers and hostile soldiers, it seemed patent to the most simple intellect that to leave the protection of our legation walls was to invite massacre. But the intensely dense ministers, Sir Claude MacDonald, E. H. Conger, M. de Giers, M. Pichon, and others, all excepting Baron von Ketteler, the German minister, actually agreed to proceed to Tientsin on the morrow with all their nationals, providing only that the Chinese government would furnish transportation. The military officers all declared this would mean the massacre of the entire community. The ministers, however, would certainly have had us all thus massacred had not the unfortunate Baron von Ketteler been murdered the next morning by the Chinese troops while proceeding to the tsung-li-yamen to consult about details. He rode, as is customary, to the tsung-li-yamen from his legation in a sedan chair. When passing the entrance of Tsung Pu street, just below the yamen, he was fired upon by a troop of Manchu troops of Yung Lu upon the command of a lieutenant with a white button, and was mortally wounded. His secretary interpreter, Mr. Corder, who accompanied him, was also badly wounded by the volley, but, aided by some friendly natives, managed to escape to the Methodist mission near Legation street, where, after having his wounds dressed, he was sent on to his legation. The horse coolie had already quickly galloped back to the legation and given the alarm. The folly of trusting our lives to the Chinese escort was thus made clear, and the foreign ministers, dense as they were, could not but realize that to trust themselves and their families to the tender mercies of the ruffians who would be appointed to escort and murder them and us, would be lunacy to a degree at which even they were not yet arrived.