If one is able to keep his mind free from the gruesome {139} and the cruel, the fiendish tricks practised everywhere along the Han by the Imperial soldiers, he cannot but admire the smartness of the military training and the extremely creditable manner in which this Imperial Army had been handled. When it is remembered that from the four high hills overlooking the Han River the Revolutionists were able continuously to blow to smithereens anything that was attempted in the way of bridge-building, the making of the bridge by which the main body of the enemy passed over the river is little short of a marvel. At this point the Han, with no inconsiderable current, is no less than three hundred and fifty yards wide. The bridge by which the Imperialists crossed was composed of some one hundred and fifty boats of all sorts and sizes, each in its turn tied to an extremely stout hawser; over this the whole of the attacking force with their complete equipment was brought. Then from this point to another point some twenty li away, at the base of the hills, villages were indiscriminately scattered, some with twenty families, some with half a dozen. All had suffered the same fate and were now but places of ashes. To the left was found a Revolutionary soldier, dead, half-eaten, dressed still in his black uniform. About the body, which was huddled in a decomposing heap on the ground, were noticed several bayonet wounds; it had been brought from a bed, upon which the wounded man had probably been done to death. Under the bed was found a lamp, on and around the bed were found huge chunks of charcoal and charred firewood; nothing else in the room was burned. Is it possible to think that those devils of men, first getting their prey like the beasts they are, then maiming him, then putting him on a bed, then getting the fire by which they intended burning him to death, had fired the lot and literally roasted their victim alive, and sat down to watch the last agonies? Such was my theory, and the {140} circumstantial evidence, with the guarded explanation of the temple caretaker--who was spared because he could wait upon these vicious greycoats--made for none other. And there the body lay; dogs had come in and eaten off a leg, a part of the neck, a part of the body; the main bone of the leg had been wrenched off, and a dog near by still growled with another for possession. Soon the burial was made, the wistful onlookers, lucky that they had escaped, remarking blandly that we were performing _hao si_. Further gruesome details of a most gruesome duty it were reasonable not to expect given; sufficient has been written to show where the great battle took place and what its effects had been. Over the hills one came across one, two, a dozen peaked caps, a dozen uniforms. Near by were nightsoil pits and ponds of stagnant water; into these the unlucky victims had been thrown. Pools of blood there were everywhere, cartridge-cases