General and Staff.  The Tartars had all decamped the night before.  I then rejoined our army and advanced with it to this point.  With the exception of a few shots exchanged with a picket of the enemy, we know of no fighting which has taken place to-day; but, strange to say, our cavalry which went off far to the right in the morning has not been heard of yet, and we cannot discover what has become of the French.  It is a nice country, covered with clumps of trees and suburban villas.  The temperature of the air is cool, but the sun was very hot all day.

[Sidenote:  The Summer Palace.]

Sunday, October 7th.—­We hear this morning that the French and our cavalry have captured the Summer Palace of the Emperor.  All the big- wigs have fled, nothing remains but a portion of the household.  We are told that the prisoners are all in Pekin. ... Five P.M.—­I have just returned from the Summer Palace.  It is really a fine thing, like an English park—­numberless buildings with handsome rooms, and filled with Chinese curios, and handsome clocks, bronzes, &c.  But, alas! such a scene of desolation.  The French General came up full of protestations.  He had prevented looting in order that all the plunder might be divided between the armies, &c. &c.  There was not a room that I saw in which half the things had not been taken away or broken to pieces.  I tried to get a regiment of ours sent to guard the place, and then sell the things by auction; but it is difficult to get things done by system in such a case, so some officers are left who are to fill two or three carts with treasures which are to be sold....  Plundering and devastating a place like this is bad enough, but what is much worse is the waste and breakage.  Out of 1,000,000 l. worth of property, I daresay 50,000 l. will not be realised.  French soldiers were destroying in every way the most beautiful silks, breaking the jade ornaments and porcelain, &c.  War is a hateful business.  The more one sees of it, the more one detests it.

[Sidenote:  Return of some of the captives.]

Pressed thus closely up to the walls of the capital, the Chinese Regent—­for the Emperor had retired to Tartary, ’being obliged by law to hunt in the autumn’—­yielded at last to save the storming of the city.  In the afternoon of the 8th of October the English and French prisoners detained in Pekin, numbering eight in all, were sent into the camp.[7]

October 9th.—­Yesterday at 4 P.M., Parkes, Loch, and one of Fane’s Irregulars arrived.  With them were four French soldiers and M. d’Escayrac (the head of a scientific commission).  The hands and wrists of the latter were in a sad condition, they had been so hurt by the cords tied round them.  Bowlby, De Norman, and the rest, do not seem to be in Pekin as we had hoped.  Parkes and Loch were very badly treated for the first ten days; since then, conciliation