Looking far to the east, even the Ha-ta Gate, where no harm has been done, does not show much movement.  The carts passing in and out are very few and far between, and the dust which in ordinary times floats above the din and roar of the gates in heavy clouds is to-day seemingly absent.  Even our Peking dust is awed by the approaching storm and nestles close to Mother Earth, so that it may come to no harm.

The more I looked the more observant I became.  The sun lolling up in a red ball, the birds, twittering and flying about while the heat of the day is not severe, showed themselves in a new light; and thus the 20th June is ushered in so complaisantly, when all the world of men appear merely tired and watchful, that the contrast makes one wonder, and at nine o’clock once more our Ministers Plenipotentiary and our Charges d’Affaires gather their eleven estimable persons together at the Legation of the doyen.  For yesterday’s Ministerial reply agreeing to the Manchu order to vacate the capital, if certain conditions were fulfilled, had begged for an urgent answer by nine o’clock regarding the little counter-demands for a time-extension, and a definite arrangement concerning the Chinese troops who are to be the safe conduct along the Tientsin road.  Nine o’clock has come, but alas! with it there is no neat Chinese despatch on striped paper which would so relieve our Ministerial feelings.  The Chinese Government remains grimly silent, for the Chinese Government has spoken plainly once, and never within the memory of man has it done so on two consecutive occasions.  So the eleven Ministers meet once more in anything but a happy frame of mind—­eleven sorely tried and wholly fearful persons, except for two or three who vainly try to instill some courage into the others.  All idea of completing the packing commenced last night has vanished; even that would demand action and resolution.  A proposal to visit the Tsung-li Yamen in a body is set aside with nervous protestations once more.  The meeting thereupon became very stormy, and the French Minister was kind enough to report afterwards that the British Minister became thereafter very red—­il est devenu soudainement tres rouge, for what reason is unknown.  S——­, who did the minutes afterwards, said that the French Minister volunteered to go with the others if they would proceed in a body, and became very pale at the idea, that he confessed himself.  Here we have, then, a red Minister and a white Minister, and if we add those who were most certainly blue and green, the national flags of the entire assembly could be fitly made up.  The French Minister, although simply a citoyen sent by the Republic to intrigue in times of peace, and aid his Russian colleague to the best of his ability, is a man withal, although quite unfitted de carriere for wars and sieges.  In the French Legation he has been receiving such tearful instructions from his wife during the past three weeks that it is a wonder he has any backbone at all....