Two o’clock on the morning of July 13th saw bodies of men, totalling rather more than 6000, moving quietly to their appointed rendezvous; from which they were to set out to fight what proved to be the fiercest battle of the war, a battle against heavy odds, and one in which every advantage lay with the opposing forces. The object in view was the capture of the native city, without which the advance to Pekin might be indefinitely delayed, and which was, equally with the capture of the Taku Forts, the most important operation of the many which finally resulted in the relief of the Legations. The native city itself, besides being surrounded by a high and solid wall which was impervious to the attacks of the Allies’ light artillery, was also the most important city in the north of China, with the single exception of Pekin. It was the centre of the huge Fur trade, and in fact was the outlet to 90 per cent. of the entire trade of two provinces. The population was about a million souls, and it was garrisoned by regular troops to the computed number of 12,000, with another 10,000 Boxers as armed auxiliaries. The latter had nearly all got rifles of types from the newest Mannlichers to old single-loading Mausers, with which, even if they were not adepts in the art of rifle shooting, they at least kept up an astonishingly heavy fusilade. They appeared to labour under some misapprehension about the use of sights, which they seemed to believe denoted the muzzle velocity of the projectile, rather than the number of yards at which it was desired to kill a foreign devil. Thus, seeing a man say about 200 yards away, they thought that if they put up their sights to about 1800 yards, they stood more chance of hurting him than they would do if content with the proper range. [Illustration: GUN AND ENSIGN CAPTURED AT TIENTSIN. [_page 156._]