centration was given up, and the remainder of the British force was assembled on the peninsula of Kowloon, on the north side of Hongkong harbour. The French assembled at Shanghai; but little room, however, was required for our allies. Cavalry they had none, and not even horses for their field batteries of light guns; their only transport was a small corps of coolies. Seeing their utterly unprepared state, Sir Hope Grant offered some of our surplus stock of ponies, but the French general objected to the price. It will hardly be credited that on the 1st of July, when the whole of the British army had arrived at Talienwhan Bay and was ready to start on the campaign, the French, at Chefoo, had only 114 unbroken Japanese ponies collected for their field artillery, for which some 600 were necessary. The consequence

was that the expedition had to be delayed a whole month simply waiting for the French to get their transport ready.

But to return to Hongkong. The arrival there of the British portion of the expedition in May made quite a lively time. Previous to their coming the difficulty was to find suitable camping - ground, as there was none on the island of Hongkong. Curiously enough, while the matter was under consideration, I chanced to be in a boat with Colonel Haythorne, chief of the staff, and Major D. We just then passed the end of the Kowloon promontory on the opposite side of the harbour, when I happened to say, "Why not take possession of the Kowloon peninsula? the ground there is made for a large camp." Whether my suggestion was the cause of it I know not, but Kowloon was taken over and the camp made there.

From a professional point of view the great attrac

field-guns.

tion at the camp was the two batteries of Armstrong This being the first occasion in which English breechloading rifled field-guns were to be used on active service, a few rounds were fired from the camp at a target out at sea for the benefit of the naval and military authorities. The range and accuracy was wonderful, but the ancient warriors shook their heads over the complications of the breech mechanism. In shrapnel, and even in fuses, we seem to have always been ahead of our Continental neighbours; but the lead-coated Armstrong segment shell and its rather too delicate fuse did not come up to expectation, as we subsequently found at Taku, where some of our men, lying down in front of the guns, were killed by the lead-coating stripping off the shells.

CHAPTER VII.

TAKU FORTS.

A MORE suitable place for a camp than the Kowloon peninsula could hardly have been found anywhere. The camping-ground was excellent, there were no inhabitants on it, and it was on the north shore of the great harbour of Hongkong. With all the resources of that place at its service, it greatly facilitated the work of concentration before starting for the final British base of operations in the north—viz., Talienwhan Bay. The French selected Chefoo, on the south side of the Gulf of Pechili, just opposite Talienwhan.

Now steam transport is always available for an expedition, but in 1860 sailing ships had to be employed and plenty of time allowed. The date fixed for everything being ready at Talienwhan to move across to Pehtang was the 1st July, and to permit of this the British portion of the force had all to be ready to leave Hongkong by the 1st June, which it did. The transport which was to take the Royals to the north was an Aberdeen clipper of 1000 tons, a small ship to take a whole regiment; but deaths and invaliding had, notwithstanding the addition of a fine draft from England, brought down the strength

of the battalion to 500 rank and file. Even then it was a tight fit, but as we were going on active service our little discomforts were not worth troubling about. When the first division of transports, all sailing ships, was ready, the wind was against us, so we had to beat out, tack and tack, and, as in the days of the old war, we had two men-of-war as convoy. They were powerful paddle-wheel frigates, and went with us not as a protection against any possible enemy we might meet, but to assist any ship which might come to grief. The transports kept pretty well together until we got through the Formosa channel, and then, a gale coming on, we lost sight of the rest of the fleet and made our way straight for the rendezvous-viz., Talienwhan Bay.

To a regiment which eighteen months before had come to China in a sailing ship from Gibraltar, life was no novelty: as for myself, it seemed to me that the middle watch and I were again inseparable.

In going north we managed to get within a couple of days' sail of Japan, and much wished we could have touched at some port in that wonderful country, which had only been opened to the world two years before. The officers of the Calcutta flagship, the first man-of-war allowed to come into a Japanese harbour, gave us some very interesting accounts of their experiences with the then unsophisticated Japs, in whose eyes everything European, especially naval buttons, was of wonderful value.

Our voyage was uneventful: the only special incident I remember was the appearance, when in the Yellow Sea, of an enormous octopus, or something of that nature. The mass of pulp seemed about as

big as the floor of a large room. It floated past close to the ship, going down just as it cleared the stern. We were the first transport to arrive in the magnificent harbour of Talienwhan, but were soon joined by many others. The country round the bay, open undulating ground, was a first-rate place for the concentration of a large force, the only drawback being a rather limited supply of water. My company happened to be sent on shore a day or two before the others for landing camp stores, &c. The second night I was in a bad way with an attack very like cholera-originated, I thought, very possibly by Talienwhan oysters. When at its worst, a violent squall with a heavy sea set in, which brought my tent down. I had just strength left to place some stones on the canvas to prevent its being blown or washed away, and crawled up the beach to a small hut, where I had rather a bad time until daylight brought our surgeon ashore. We lost two men from similar attacks, and then the complaint, whatever it was, ceased.

The British force at Talienwhan, in consequence of the water difficulty, had to be spread out on both sides of the bay; but as the Chinese forces were a long way off at Taku, we could safely make our own arrangements. The few natives, a particularly fine race, very different in appearance from the wellknown Chinese type farther south, were rather alarmed at our arrival, but did not desert their small villages and farms, and were ready enough to sell us what they had in the way of provisions. I have an amusing recollection of going with another sub. to cater for our mess, and buying at a farm a nice little black pig, which would not be driven, so