=Pekin, 1860.=--The Buffs were left to garrison Taku, and the 44th Shanghai, which was threatened by the Taiping rebels, while the army marched on to Tientsin, from which on September 8th the 1st Division and about half the French force set out on the advance to Pekin. At Changdia-wan there was a sharp skirmish, and the enemy abandoned their entrenchments with 74 guns, and offered to sign a convention. Mr. (afterwards Sir Harry) Parkes, Lord Elgin's secretary, together with four officers and an escort, set out to arrange preliminaries, but were treacherously taken prisoners, and all the officials, with the exception of Mr. Parkes, barbarously murdered. Sir Hope Grant then prepared to meet the Chinese attack, and in the action which was fought at Chow-ho the Chinese were put to rout, and a great number cut down in the pursuit by the Dragoons and Probyn's Horse. The allies then advanced on Pekin, and the French army occupied the Summer Palace of Yuan-ming-Yuan. At the Bridge of Palichaio a last desperate effort was made by the Chinese Imperial Guard, but the vigorous French attack drove them back with the loss of 25 guns, and gained for General Montauban the title of Comte de Paliko. On October 7th the enemy was informed that unless the prisoners were restored and one of the gates of the city given up to the allies, the city would be stormed. The Chinese agreed to this, and the Au-ting gate of the city was occupied without opposition by 200 British and French troops on October 13th. It was found, however, that twenty of Mr. Parkes' party had succumbed to the terrible treatment of their Chinese captors, and Lord Elgin having given his word to spare the city if it were surrendered, ordered the Summer Palace, where the atrocities had been committed, to be razed to the ground. The Summer Palace consisted of thirty buildings in grounds extending for about 6 miles, and although the troops set to work with a will to burn--and to plunder--it took two days to destroy the buildings by fire. Of the loot of the Summer Palace at Pekin many fabulous stories have been told, but there can be no doubt that in this wilful destruction of the palace, and the indiscriminate dispersal of its valued contents, gems of art and wonderful pieces of jewellery and goldsmith's work were annexed by men who had not the faintest notion of their exceeding value. It is said that a French officer found a string of beautiful pearls, each about the size of a small marble, and sold it for £3,000! The loot taken by the British troops, such as was given up, was sold at public auction by order of Sir Hope Grant, and it is recorded the share of each private soldier was not less than £4 sterling. The city of Pekin was then occupied by the allies, and, the Chinese having agreed to cede the island of Kowloon, opposite Hong Kong, to Britain, to make Tientsin an open port, and to pay an indemnity of £100,000 to the relatives of the murdered men, the war was concluded.