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CHAPTER VIII.

PEKIN.

CROWDS came to the camp to sell poultry and vegetables, but, alas! the little money we had was soon gone, and the pay department had none at hand to give us. At last, owing to our pressing necessities, they succeeded in getting up enough coin to give each officer an advance of two dollars. These we made go as far as possible by cutting them up with an axe into small pieces, which the Chinamen were glad to accept by weight for fowls and vegetables.

Eventually the pay department was more liberal, and for some of us it was about time. Our thin summer clothing was getting pretty well worn out when we fortunately found that good cloth, not only blue but also scarlet, of Russian manufacture, I heard, was to be bought in Tientsin, and our master tailor and his men were soon at work. Unfortunately, before I had a respectable pair of trousers I was told off for the commander-in-chief and Ministers' guard in the town. I did not much mind my war-worn kit until Sir Hope's A.D.C. came out and asked me to dine with the commander-in-chief. My French colleague was standing by when the invitation was given I saw him smile and look at my trousers. As

I accepted the kind invitation, I think I rather puzzled him when I said, "I shall dine with Sir Hope, but not in these clothes." I had a sudden inspiration. A good dinner then was worth risking a row for. As soon as it was dark I handed over my guard to the sergeant, as I had to dress for dinner! I then at a trot went down the bank of the river to a despatch gun-vessel, one of the lieutenants of which was an old friend. I got him to lend me his uniform, and as a naval officer I had an excellent dinner and some firstrate champagne. The A.D.C., an old friend, took in the situation at once as soon as I appeared, sat next me, and so prevented awkward conversation, and possibly even a court-martial. After dinner I ran down the river again, and returned in my rags to my guard.

As the first thing to be done after occupying a new position is to make oneself acquainted with the country in the vicinity, I went, as soon as I had overhauled the line of intrenchment on our side of the river, known as Sangolinsin's Wall, down the bank of the river, and crossed in a Chinaman's ferry-boat. Not having any copper cash, a smiling, well-dressed native paid my fare. The large fort I had come to inspect was close to the water, and one of the first things which attracted my attention was a low curiouslooking building in the centre. Just before I came up to it I happened to throw away the end of a Manilla cigar which I had finished. This was lucky for me, because as I entered the building I stumbled in the obscurity over what seemed heavy sand. When my eyes got used to the dim light I found myself over my ankles in loose powder, with leather-covered baskets of it piled on both sides. I did not light the

next Manilla until I was well clear of that magazine. The down-river face of the fort was strongly made, with gun-carriages before each embrasure, but the guns were absent. I noticed some freshly moved earth beside the carriages, and from curiosity, not having any idea of what was underneath, commenced poking it up with a short stick, when I struck metal, and soon saw it was the chase of a huge brass gun. Having no time to remove the guns, as our gunboats pressed up, the Chinese simply capsized their guns out of the carriages and buried them. This they

must have done the night we were aground in the Bustard. I reported the find, and also similar smaller buried guns by Sangolinsin's Wall. The Royal Artillery came out and carted off the small guns ; what became of the big ones in the fort I do not know.

As the nights were now beginning to get chilly, the colonel suggested that, as I had no special work on hand, I might as well go to our transport, which was anchored a few miles out at sea, off the Taku bar, and bring up the regimental blankets which had been left on board—a roving commission which just suited me. With a few things in a hand-bag, and my light greatcoat for night work, I walked into Tientsin and hunted about until I found a small steamer going down the river to the fleet. A good-natured skipper gave me a passage, and with a bundle of Chinese bread for food in my haversack, I made myself comfortable on the stern-sheets of the little cabin, having first placed my haversack in a tin where rats could not get at it; and lucky it was for me I did so, for the ship must have been swarming with them. So many ran about and jumped on me that, until I got used to them, sleep was out of the question.

On the evening

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of the next day I got to the ship, and found the blankets had been sent on shore to the forts. The senior officer then in the roads, about whom there were so many amusing yarns, could not get me a passage back to the shore; but my boat at last managed to cut off a steamer going in, and in due time I found myself at the great Taku fort, and, what was more to the purpose, the blankets were there, also a friend, who put me up for the night. Next day I got a kind-hearted commander of a gunboat to take me and my blankets up the river, much to the satisfaction of the regiment. Had I gone to work officially, it would have taken at least a week to get even the necessary passes and shipping orders. The only difficulty I had was with the naval officer, who did not see how he could find me a passage to the shore; but he was at times a little absent-minded, the service yarn being that when he for the first time commanded a steamship, fully rigged in those days, he shortened sail and made the usual preparations for anchoring, but the ship still went ahead full speed. Suddenly the captain was heard to say, "Oh dear, oh dear, I forgot she was a steamer"!

When at Taku I was able to make an inspection of the works which we had attempted to capture the year before with such disastrous results to us. The ramparts facing the sea were very solid, being also strengthened with massive beams of timber. The guns were in regular casemates, with heavy rope mantlets in front of the embrasures. The whole appearance of the solid work and the rope mantlets at once recalled what I had specially noticed in the Redan at Sebastopol. Russians were rumoured to have assisted the Chinese at Taku, but the work, I

am sure, was native only. The heavy brass guns, 6 or 7 tons, on the high cavaliers were mounted on ponderous non-recoil wooden carriages, pivoting on a huge wooden bolt in the centre. To prevent the brass running with the great heat of the large powdercharges, the bores of the guns were regularly lined with iron tubing, thus anticipating Major Palliser's invention by many years. The brass time-fuses were a coarse imitation of ours, and I very much doubt if they were of any use. The cylinders of grape made by the Chinese for the 10-inch shell-guns captured from our gunboats were just three times as long as ours, and very possibly would have burst the guns had these grape cylinders been used.

The ground outside the fort beyond the ditch was thickly covered with stout bamboo splinters about 3 feet long, 1 foot of that being tightly wedged into the mud. I found on testing the ground that so close were these splinter stakes that I could not get along without wrenching them out to make room for my foot.

In the open ground on the land side of the forts I found on the ground a huge naval shell which had been fired a short time before from the rifle muzzleloading guns the French had on their gunboats. I stuck it up on end to see what the fuse was like, and then walked back to my gunboat, and had been only there a few minutes when there was a tremendous explosion on shore, and a huge mass of something came flying through the air and fell with a heavy splash close to a boat full of men. It appears

that just after I left the shell an Indian coolie had shaken the ashes of his pipe into the fuse-hole, and then squatted down to watch the thing fizzing. The