so fast that we had to retreat into the fort, and where we were soon joined by everyone else. Then the junks took courage, and came on fast and furiously, with their flat-bottomed 'boarding-boats' towing alongside. But it was too late; the flood-tide was making, and they had no fancy for waiting for one of our large steamers that had got her steam up, and for whom there would soon be water enough to come down to us. So the great fleet made off again, and some time afterwards Commodore Keppel went after them, and demolished them at Fatshan.

In the course of events the Chinese set fire to the Factories and burnt us out of our comfortable quarters there, where our countrymen the merchants, to the last, had kept open house with the profuse hospitality for which they are famous. We consequently had to take to our ships, the Chinese keeping us on the alert by sending torpedoes down upon us-wooden tanks filled with powder, floating at the level of the water, drifting with the tide, and meant to blow us up at night by means of a match attached to a long lanyard from an accompanying boat, but which happily for us always

failed. One was intercepted loaded with three thousand pounds of powder.

We were also occasionally enlivened by the approach of fire junks loaded with combustibles, and which were dangerous customers to have to grapple and tow off. One night I was on guard in a junk, which we had anchored ahead of the ships for the purpose of intercepting these incendiary craft, when four junks under sail were seen standing towards us. We had a couple of 32-pounders on board always loaded, and I was on the point of giving them a shot, but seeing the straightforward unsuspicious way in which they approached, I concluded that they were honest trading junks, and out of compassion to them let them pass. They had a fine breeze, and in less time than it took me to put my night-glass back into its case, to my horror I saw them fall across the bows of one of our ships and burst into flames. Their scheme was admirably conducted, but was as admirably thwarted. Our ship, which was moored ahead and stern, instantly slipped her bow cable, and, holding on to the stern one, swung round with the tide, and freed herself from the embrace of her unwelcome visitors, who drifted away and burnt leisurely out on the mud.

The fire-flies were sometimes the cause of ludicrous mistakes being made by ships newly arrived on the station. One ship on her first arrival was stationed at the Bogue, on the Canton river. On the North Wantung Island they kept their bullocks, and having lost one or two (supposed to have been stolen), they rowed guard round the island at night. One night the boat gave the alarm to the ship; another boat was sent to assist; all landed. 'There they are!' some one said, pointing to some lights. Bang went a dozen muskets, chase was given, but after a vigorous search they were obliged to return on board without catching the thieves, or even finding the dead whom they were sure they had shot. Some few hours afterwards similar lights were seen flitting about. Some one suggested that they might be fireflies; and so they proved to be. At the Bird'snest Fort a sentry gave the alarm, and fired twice at a glow-worm, who didn't answer his hail!

For some months I was quartered in Macao Fort, where we used to sit and watch the clever ' tailor-birds' at work in the trees, making their nests by sewing the edges of the leaves together, with their beaks for a needle, and with

thread which they had spun themselves with

what they could pick up.

Here Captain Bate was in command the latter part of the timeone of the kindest and best of men, and who was afterwards killed before the walls of Canton while taking their altitude with a sextant preparatory to the assault.

At night in the fort the Chinese used to annoy us by coming down and firing at us with a big gun, muskets, and rockets from the banks-our fort being in the middle of the river; and I seem to see the stalwart form of Captain Bate now, standing on the banquette of our earthwork, directing our mortar, with which we used to plump shell upon them with low charges, and as perfectly indifferent to their musket-balls as if they had been peas. It was a long time before we broke ourselves of the habit of instinctively bobbing when the balls whistled past our heads; at which he used to chaff us, and at the same time point out the uselessness of doing so, for whenever we bobbed the shot was unquestionably past us. He was an experienced Christian and seaman, and greatly beloved by us.

CHAPTER XIII.

ANOTHER man of heroic type had his pennant flying on the Canton waters in those days— Captain the Hon. Henry Keppel. He commanded the 50-gun frigate Raleigh,' and, hastening out from England at the outbreak of the China War, struck on an unknown pinnacle-rock in deep water, just below the surface, as he was working up to Hong Kong. They tried every possible means to keep the ship afloat, but the water poured in in torrents and all their efforts were unavailing; so he cracked on all sail and made for Macao, in order to run her aground there. As they neared the Roads. they made out a French frigate at anchor, with an admiral's flag flying, and then, although the water had risen above the main deck, he ordered the guns to be loaded, and fired a salute to the French admiral as his ship was going down.

Not one

man in a thousand would have attended to such a point of etiquette at such a