Outside of this improvised quarter Taku no longer exists. Nothing but ruined walls, burned roofs, piles of ashes, and nameless receptacles of filth, wherein are huddled together old clothing, dogs, and human heads covered with hair. I slept on board the _Bengali_, this hospitality having been extended to me by the commander. Occasional shots break the nocturnal silence, and toward morning I hear--although half asleep--horrible cries uttered by the Chinese on shore. FRIDAY, October 12. I rose at daybreak to go and take the train, which still runs as far as Tien-Tsin and even a little beyond. Farther on, the road having been destroyed by Boxers, I shall continue I do not yet know how, either in a Chinese cart, in a junk, or on horseback, and from all accounts cannot count on seeing the great walls of Pekin for six or seven days. I have an order which will secure me rations from the posts along the road, otherwise I should run the risk of dying from hunger in this ravaged land. I have as little baggage as possible, nothing but a light canteen, and but one travelling companion, a faithful servant brought from France. At the station, where I arrive at sunrise, I find again all yesterday's Zouaves, their knapsacks on their backs. No tickets are necessary for this railway, everything military is carried by right of conquest. Along with Cossack and Japanese soldiers a thousand Zouaves pile into carriages with broken panes through which the wind whistles. I find a place with their officers, and very soon we are calling up memories of Africa, where they have been, and longing for Tunis and Algeria the White. We are two hours and a half on the road across the mournful plain. At first it was only gray earth as at Taku; then there were reeds and herbage touched with frost. On all sides are immense splashes of red, like blood stains, due to the autumn flowering of a kind of marsh plant. On the horizon of this desert myriads of migratory birds may be seen, rising like clouds, eddying and then falling. The north wind blows and it is very cold. Soon the plain is peopled with tombs,--tombs without number, all of the same shape,--each one a kind of cone of earth piled up and surmounted by a ball of faience,--some small, like little huts, others as large as camping tents. They are grouped according to families and they are legion. The entire country is a burial-place with a gory look resulting from the splashes of red to which I have referred. At the stopping-places where the ruined stations are occupied by Cossacks, there are calcined cars--damaged by fire--and locomotives riddled with balls. At other places we do not stop because there is nothing left; the few villages which mark this vicinity are all destroyed. * * * * *