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our private and other transport animals. I sent a message to my naval friends on the guard-vessel that my mule, cart and harness, and another we had, were at their service; but we were hurried off, and whether they got them or not I never knew. It was bitterly cold going down the river that night: we afterwards heard a boat's crew had been frozen to death at the mouth of the river, which was soon filled with floating ice. We got away just in time, and right glad were we to find ourselves again on our transport. Besides the loss of my rolls of silk, I also missed a couple of live ducks, the last of our little mess stores, which as a reserve of food I had put in a bag and taken on board the gunboat, but I got them again. An eccentric old major had used them as a pillow to keep his head warm. Being well-brought-up Chinese birds, they soon, he said, became quite quiet, the major and the ducks mutually keeping each other warm.

We had a rough passage to Hongkong, being very light we once rolled so much that with our slack rigging I fully expected the masts would go over the side; but the proverbial cherub evidently thought Tommy deserved consideration as well as poor Jack, and so we got safely to our destination, and arrangements were made for sending the regiment home-the headquarters and five companies in our ship, and three in a barque of some 700 tons. Hongkong at this time, from the reckless way pay and prize-money was got rid of, must have had some resemblance to Portsmouth in ancient days. A large amount of sycee silver taken at the palace was declared prize of war. This, to the great satisfaction of the men, instead of going through the hands of agents, was, thanks to Sir Hope Grant, divided, so to say, on the capstan-head at Pekin, each

man and officer also getting his regulation amount by weight. One of our captains on the staff got a huge block and showed it to me. I pointed out that for silver it was uncommonly dull in colour. On taking it to the bank it proved to be lead! Unfortunately it

was too late to get it changed.

Before leaving, I went up to Canton to make some purchases and see my Chinese friends again, particularly the jeweller, with whom I used to have many afternoon talks: we were mutually sorry to say good-bye. During my residence in Canton I had made the acquaintance of some of the leading native merchants, and learnt to appreciate their good and thoroughly reliable qualities. The mandarins as a rule, and, speaking generally, the Chinese Government officials everywhere, were about as objectionable and untrustworthy as they well could be; but for the Chinese merchant and the Chinese peasant I had then, and always shall have, a great regard. In the cities there are, as with us, a large criminal population ready for any iniquity, but considering how atrociously corrupt the ruling classes are, it is a wonder such a proportion of the inhabitants are so quiet and law-abiding. The departure of the allied garrison from Canton was a sad day for a city which until then had never enjoyed the blessing of really good government. Chinese officials, pirates, and robbers excepted, all the rest of the population of Canton would have been only too pleased had our garrison been a permanent one. Although it might have been risky to enlist Chinamen for soldiers' work in Canton, it often occurred to me that they would make excellent soldiers in other parts of the empire,

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such as India, more especially in one Presidency, where the supply of suitable fighting material had apparently come to an end. The Canton coolie corps were very plucky, even holding the scaling-ladders for our men storming the large Taku fort. The Tartars, who were also a fine fighting lot, would have made good cavalrymen.

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CHAPTER IX.

HOME SERVICE.

WE sailed for England some time in November via Singapore, Anger, and the Cape. Just before arriving at Singapore smallpox broke out amongst the sailors, so, although there was plenty of it on shore, we were left on board ship in quarantine for seven days. The sick were landed and the forecastle fumigated, but beyond that nothing was done. The military and medical authorities on shore deliberately allowed the ship to go on its long voyage with every chance of our transport being a plague-ship before we got to the Cape. Before we left I had a couple of days on shore, and saw what a prosperous place Singapore was. The climate, moist and muggy, must have been very enervating, but the rate of mortality was low. The pine-apples and mangosteens were something to remember. When in quarantine a friend sent off a canoe-load of fruit, which was most acceptable until we came to the durian, about the size of a cocoanut, which is considered a great delicacy by residents at Singapore. As soon as we took the husk off we had all to bolt out of the saloon rotten eggs were not in it compared with the durian.

The fort on the hill at Singapore in those days was

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about the most perfect specimen of a shell-trap that could have been devised, but all the works have been altered since that time. The passage down amongst the islands to Anger in beautiful weather was a wonderful sight,-islands covered to the summit with luxuriant tropical vegetation, with broad shore-lines of glittering white coral. Smoke was coming from the summit of one great hill: this may have been the island of Krakatoa, which some twenty years afterwards almost disappeared in one of the most terrific of volcanic explosions of modern days. There was nothing to be seen at the low-lying small fort of Anger Head. The inhabitants of that unfortunate place, and many thousands along the adjacent coast, were drowned by an immense wave, said to be 70 feet high, which swept over that part of the ocean when the Krakatoa explosion took place.

All I

The voyage to the Cape was uneventful. happen to remember about it was, that when laying off the course the day before we should have sighted land-I still went on with my nautical hobby-I asked the first mate to check my work, because by my reckoning we should be high and dry on shore about midnight. My work turned out to be correct; so the ship's course was altered several points, and in the morning there was the coast of Africa broad on our beam. Off Point Agulhas, for some reason, the captain, who must have been quite ignorant of the force of the Agulhas current, shortened sail until warned off by the lighthouse signalling, "It is dangerous to be becalmed off this point." Having a first-rate telescope, I had managed to read the flags just in time, as the daylight began to fail. Before this our captain would have it that Struys Bay was