At dawn on the 20th, the Chinese opened a fierce bombardment, bringing a 2-inch Krupp gun into use for the first time. One of the fifty pound shells from this weapon struck the hospital, and piercing the wall, fell in the passage outside the window of a ward full of wounded officers. Luckily it did not explode, and beyond the shock, which naturally affects one’s nerves when lying wounded in bed, no harm was done. During the morning the French settlement suffered very severely from a concentrated shell fire, and by the end of the day there was hardly a habitable house in it. Practically no reply was made by the Allies’ artillery, consisting as it did of small and sometimes antique weapons, with a very limited supply of ammunition which was carefully husbanded to stem any rush on the part of the enemy. An attempt was made to silence the 5-inch, by mounting a Maxim on the roof of a house and firing at the flash, but the big fellow took no notice of its puny opponent’s angry mutterings, and went on sullenly the whole night. Next morning the enemy turned their attention to the south-westerly defences again, and when they had tried unsuccessfully to elicit a reply from our two guns in that direction, they vented their spite on the wool-mills, which were held by a midshipman with forty men. These quickly had to leave the buildings, and entrenched in the open in front of them, the midshipman and several men having been wounded by splinters at almost the first discharge. At half-past ten the mill was set on fire, and blazed furiously, sending up dense masses of black smoke, as the flames caught the large quantities of wool and dye which were stored in the buildings. Machinery to the value of £100,000 was destroyed, and the main building was completely gutted. Immediately the effect of their shell fire became apparent, large masses of troops poured out of the south gate of the city, and it looked as though the Chinese were going to press their advantage. However, at this moment, our two guns woke up, and burst a few shells among them, and on the arrival of our reinforcements, the enemy desisted from further operations, having done considerable damage, but without gaining any military success.