Without formation, without arms, with readers as ignorant as the common ruck, all that they could hope to do was to murder the few outlying missionaries that stuck to their missions, and to burn their residences over their dead bodies. Women and children became, once their male protectors had been accounted for, an easy prey to the inhuman murderers, who afterwards gloated over their mangled and unrecognisable corpses. Before bitter experience had taught these ruffians a lesson, they were daring in the extreme, and looked down on the Imperial troops with great disdain; but having been placed in the forefront of the engagement on one or two occasions, and having suffered accordingly, they lost their contempt for death surprisingly quickly, and losing spirit, were seen to real advantage for the last time in their attacks on the Peh-tang Cathedral. Among other incidents of their earlier share in the Campaign must be mentioned their attacks on Seymour’s column, in which they displayed wonderful faith in the efficacy of their supposed charms, and a still more wonderful fearlessness. In the matter of dress each one pleased himself, but there was a “rig” which proclaimed a Boxer immediately, and which was affected by those able to get the necessary materials. Made, as nearly all Chinese clothes are, of cotton, with the typical Mancha jacket, and loose baggy trousers caught in at the ankle with strings, their attire was in colour blue with a red sash, red waistbands, and red anklets. The leaders were distinguishable by the large amount of yellow they wore, as did the Buddhists among them, and a final distinctive mark were their red and black standards. These gaudy flags had various mottoes on them; and on seeing a literal translation of one of them, one is not inclined to believe that “Live and let live” chanced to be inscribed on any of the others. The sum total of their achievements from beginning to end amounts to very little, consisting as it did of murdering a hundred or so defenceless Europeans; a thousand certainly, probably thousands, of equally defenceless Chinamen, who had either offended them or refused to join them; and doing thousands of pounds’ worth of damage to railway, telegraph, and house property, irrespective of their owner’s nationality.