Very near us, a hundred metres from our fort, passes the Great Wall of China. It is surmounted at this point by a watch tower, where the Japanese are now established, and there they have planted their white flag on a bamboo stick in the red sunlight. Always smiling, especially at the French, the little Japanese soldiers invite us to come up to see from above the surrounding country. The Great Wall, seven or eight hundred metres thick at this point, descends gently amid green grass on the Chinese side, but drops vertically on the side toward Manchuria, where it is flanked by enormous square bastions. We mount, and at our feet we see the wall plunging on one hand into the Yellow Sea, while on the other it rises to the summits of the mountain and goes winding on through the fields as far as the eye can see, giving the impression of a colossal thing which never comes to any end. Toward the east we have a view, in this clear light, of the deserted plains of Manchuria. Toward the west--in China--the wooded country has a deceptive look of peace and confidence. All the European flags hoisted on the forts have a festive air amid all the green. It is true that on a plain near the shore there are evidences of an immense movement of Cossacks, but they are far away and the noise does not reach us, though there are at least five thousand men among the tents and among the flags which are stuck into the ground. Where the other powers send to Ning-Hia only a few companies, the Russians on the contrary proceed in great masses, because of their designs on neighboring Manchuria. Shan-Haï-Kouan, the Tartar village which has closed its gates through fear of pillage, appears in the distance, gray and mute as though asleep behind its high crenellated walls. On the sea off toward the horizon, rests the squadron of the Allies,--a fleet of steel monsters with black smoke, friends for the moment, silently assembled in the motionless blue. The weather is calm, exquisite, buoyant. The prodigious rampart of China blossoms at this season like a garden. Between its sombre bricks, loosened by time, asters, and quantities of pinks like those at the seashore in France are pushing their way through. This legendary wall, which has for centuries stopped all invasion from the north, will probably nevermore see the yellow flag and the green dragon of the Celestial emperors. Its time has gone by, passed, is forever at an end. III ON THE WAY TO PEKIN I THURSDAY, Oct. 11, 1900. At noon, on a beautiful calm day that is almost warm and very luminous on the water, I leave the admiral's ship, the _Redoutable_, to go on a mission to Pekin. We are in the gulf of Petchili on the road to Taku, but at such a distance from the shore that it is not visible, so there is no indication of China anywhere. The trip begins with a short ride on a steam launch, which takes us out to the _Bengali_, the little despatch-boat which will bring me to land by to-night.