What struck Gilbert as peculiar on his first trip beyond Tongku were the numerous mounds which greeted his eyes, rearing their heads like so many anthills at every turn. He soon learned, however, that these were the well-known graves of China, scattered broadcast. In some cases these graves are deeply dug; but ia others the dead are placed along the roadside, and covered only with a handful of earth or a bit of coarse matting.
The young lieutenant's duties at Tongku kept him close to the river front; and from time to time he saw floating on the stream the lifeless bodies of Chinese soldiers and Boxers, the latter easily to be identified by the curious symbols on their breasts, painted on their garments as a guard against all evils! Once he saw three Celestials floating together, each in the death-grip of the others; and the sight made him shudder more than anything he had witnessed in the Philippines.
"Poor fellows! it's a good deal of a pity to fight them," he murmured. "They really don't know what they are doing. I suppose, in their way, they imagine they are quite in the right." Then he drew a long breath, and the soldier spirit came back to him.
