We sadly visited all these places. It was about the hour of the attack that we approached the Presbyterian compound. Of the once pleasant homes and mission buildings, not even ruins were left. A few hundred yards away, the site could not have been distinguished from the rest of the open fields if my companions had not pointed out marks mournfully intelligible to them but hardy recognizable by a stranger. The very foundations had been dug up by Chinese hunting for silver, and every scrap of material had been carried away. Even the trees and bushes had been removed by the roots and used for firewood. In front of the site of the Simcox house are a few unmarked mounds. All but one contain the fragments of the bodies of the Chinese helpers and Christians, and that one, the largest, holds the few pieces of bones which were all that could be found in the ruins of the house in which the missionaries perished. A few more may yet be found. We ourselves discovered five small pieces which Dr. Charles Lewis afterwards identified as human bones. But their charred and broken condition showed how completely the merciful fire had done its work of keeping the sacred remains from the hands of those who would have shamefully misused them. The American Board and China Inland Mission compounds were also in ruins, a chaos of desolation. But as the martyred missionaries and native Christians were beheaded and not burned, their bodies have been recovered and interred in a long row of twenty-three graves. The negotiations of foreign Powers with the Chinese regarding the payment of indemnity were, as might be expected, protracted and full of difficulties. Some of the Powers favoured extreme demands which, if acceded to, would have ruined the Empire or resulted in its immediate partition, even if they did not cause a new and more bitter outbreak of hostilities. Other Powers, notably the United States, favoured moderate terms, holding that China should not be asked to pay sums that were clearly beyond her ability. After almost interminable disputes, the total sum to be paid by China was, by the final protocol signed September 7, 1901, fixed at 450,000,000 taels to be paid in thirty-nine annual installments with interest at four per cent. on the deferred payments and to be distributed as follows: Country taels Germany 90,070,515 Austria-Hungary 4,003,920 Belgium 8,484,345 Spain 135,315 United States 32,939,055[63] France 70,878,240 Portugal 92,250 Great Britain 50,712,795 Italy 26,617,005 Japan 34,793,100 Netherlands 782,100 Russia 230,371,120