TWO:"A good many of these punishments precede a much more merciful one, that of decapitation. The victim who is to suffer the loss of his head is carried to the place of execution in a small cage of bamboo, with his hands tied behind him, and the crime for which he is to suffer written on a piece of stiff paper and fastened to his hair. In one corner of the cage is a bucket, which is to hold his head after the executioner has cut it off; and frequently the pail with the head in it is hung near one of the gates of the city or in some other public place. When he reaches the execution-ground, he is required to kneel, and the executioner strikes his head off with a single blow of a heavy sword. The poor fellows who are to suffer death rarely make any opposition, and some of them seem quite willing to meet it. This is said to be due partly to the calmness of the Chinese, and partly to the fact that they have been so tortured and starved in their imprisonment that it is a relief to die. In most of the Chinese prisons the men condemned to death are usually kept until there are several on hand; then a general execution is ordered, and the whole lot of them are taken out to the place of decapitation. During the time of the rebellion they used to have executions by wholesale, and sometimes one or two hundred heads were taken off in a single morning.Great news the aide-de-camp brought us; from Lee, from Longstreet, Bragg and Johnston. Johnston was about to fall upon Grant's rear. Across the Mississippi Dick Taylor was expected this very day to deal the same adversary a crippling blow, and it was partly to mask this movement that we had made our feint upon the Federals near Natchez. Now these had fallen back, and our force had cunningly slipped away southward. Only General Austin and his staff had not gone when Lieutenant Helm left the front, and they were about to go.