With such curious scenes proceeding these fires were checked in one direction only to break out in another.  For later on, sneaking in under the cover of trees and the many massive buildings which pushed up so close, Chinese marauders finding that they could escape, threw torch after torch soaked in petroleum on the neighbouring roofs and rafters.  In some cases they forced our posts to seek cover by firing on them very heavily, and then with a sudden dash they could accomplish their deadly work at ease.  At one time, thanks to this policy, the outbuildings of the British Legation actually caught fire, and the flames, urged on by a sharp north wind, lolled out their tongues longingly towards the main buildings.  Lines of men, women, and children were hastily formed to our wells and hundreds of utensils of the most incongruous character were brought into play.  I came back to find ladies of the Legations handing even pots de chambre full of water to the next person in the long chain which had been formed; and among all these people who were at length willing to work because of the imminent danger of their being smoked out, I found long-lost faces, including that of my own chief.  Where they had all sprung from I could not make out.  But to see Madame So-and-so, a Ministerial wife, handing these delectable utensils, and forced to labour hard, was worth a good many privations.  There are so many elements of the tragic-absurd now to be seen.

That work on the British Legation lines confined me for some time to this area, and determined to profit by it, I sought out Viscount T——­, who loves delicacies, and offered to exchange champagne for a few tins of preserves.  We have mules, we have ponies, and we have even donkeys, it is true, and a great mass of grain and rice which will last for weeks.  But it is dry and sorrowful food, and I long for a few delicacies.  To-day my midday tiffin consisted of a rude curry made of pony meat; and in the evening, because I was busy and had no time to search out other things, I ate once again of pony—­this time cold!  ’I will frankly confess that I was not enchanted, and had it not been for the Monopole, of which there are great stores in the hotel and the club—­thousand cases in all, I believe—­I should have collapsed.  For as Monsieur la Fontaine has informed us, even the most willing of stomachs has certain rights, and there are times when a good deal of zeal is necessary.  It is true we have now a narcotic to feed on which supports us at all times almost without the aid of anything else—­the never-ending roll of rifle-fire now blazing forth with grim violence and sending a storm of bullets overhead, now muttering slowly and cautiously with merely a falling leaf or a snipped branch to show that it is directed at our devoted heads.  You can live on that for many hours, but it is a bad thing to feed on, of course, for it must leave after-effects more hard to overcome than those of opium.  Little d’A——­, of the French Legation, swears he never feels hungry at all so long as the firing continues....