It shows how little is still generally known of what is going on in our very midst, and low disordered things really are, when I say that I only learned to-day that the whole city--in fact, every part of it--has been duly divided up some time ago by the Allied Commanders into districts--one district being assigned to every Power of importance that has brought up troops. They are trying to organise military patrols and a system of police to stop the looting, which shows no signs of abating. Everybody is crazy now to get more loot. Every new man says that he only wants a few trifles, but as soon as he has a few he must, of course, have more, and thus the ball continues rolling indefinitely.... Nothing will stop it. Yesterday, just as a man of the British Legation was telling me that the system was really all right, that it was, in fact, a working system which would soon be productive of results, and that the bad part was over, a huge Russian convoy debouched into the street where we were standing. It was a curious mixture of green-painted Russian army-waggons and captured Chinese country carts, and every vehicle was loaded to its maximum capacity with loot. The convoy had come in from the direction of the Summer Palace, and was accompanied by such a small escort of infantrymen that I should not have cared to insure them against counter-attacks on the road from any marauders who might have seen them in a quiet spot. A dozen mounted men of resolution could have cut them up. The carts lumbered along, however, indifferent to every danger, in their careless disorder. Their drivers were half asleep, and things kept on dropping to the ground and being smashed to atoms. Just near us the ropes stretched round one cart became loosened by the rocking and bumping occasioned by the vile road, and the contents, no longer held in place, began spilling to the ground. As soon as he had seen this, the Russian soldier-driver became furious. He would have had to do a lot of work to repack his load properly, so he soon thought of a shorter and easier way: he began deliberately throwing overboard his overload! Three beautiful porcelain vases of enormous size and priceless value suffered this fate; then some bulky pieces of jade carved in the form of curious animals. C---- tried to stop the man, but I only smiled grimly. What did it matter? In Prince Tuan's Palace I had seen, a couple of days before, the incredible sight of thousands of pieces of porcelain and baskets full of wonderful _objects de vertu_ smashed into ten thousand atoms by the soldiery who had first forced their way there. They only wanted bullion. Porcelain painted in all the colours of the rainbow, and worth anything on the European markets--what did that mean to them!