City. Each legation occupied from an acre to five acres of ground, and was surrounded by a wall with watch-gates. During the bombardment nearly all these walls were demolished, only those around the British legation remaining intact. Everything was ripped up by shot or shell, and rifle bullets peppered the buildings by the thousands. It is said that one door of the German legation contained sixty-three bullet-holes, and that another at the American legation was literally splintered into toothpicks.
Being short of ammunition, those in the British legation did their best to make every shot tell; and, as the bombardment went on, the streets outside were filled with Chinese dead to the number of hundreds. Silver candlesticks were melted up, and made into bullets, and an old cannon, which had not seen service for twenty years, was repaired by several army engineers, and made to do excellent work against the enemy.
Among those who believed in holding out to the last was Rev. Mr. Wells. "I am willing to live upon next to nothing," he declared. "And I will take a soldier's place, when called upon. "We must hold them at bay until relieved." He had with him
