redolent with sweet scented flowers. In the background the Rheichenbach waterfall is seen like a silver thread, and towering above all are the Dosenhorn and other lofty peaks with their diadems of snow.' And now my sketch must be drawn to a close. Beautiful Mevringen the bride of Switzerland. At five o'clock one dewy morning I left her sleeping in that pleasant valley, and away I started on foot over the great Scheideck, twenty miles to Grindelwald. And as I ascended the opposite mountain, I involuntarily turned round to take a farewell look of Hasli with its pleasant bowers, its glistening waterfalls, its shaded groves, which deck the beautiful village of Meyringen. JAMES W. BRYANS.

THE BRITISH ARMS IN NORTH CHINA AND JAPAN.

There has been no naval action for many years, the account of which so stirs the blood as that fought by the fleet under Admiral Hope, and the defenders of the Taku forts, in China; indeed we doubt if there is any naval action on record in which the number of killed and wounded was greater in proportion than on board the "Plover" in this affair. In this unfortunate attempt to remove the barriers which prevented the passage of our vessels with the ambassadors up the Peino, the Chinese showed themselves so bold, and so skilful in directing the fire of their forts upon our gunboats, as to astonish everybody; there being no precedent for such a vigorous resistance on their part. Admiral Hope had hoisted his flag on board the "Plover," and about 2 o'clock on the 25th of June 1859, he had his little fleet in position, and an attempt was forthwith begun to remove the barriers. This was the signal for the Chinese opening fire, which was so efficient that in a short time four gunboats were completely disabled. The Admiral had mounted the cookhouse, where he stood a conspicuous mark for the enemy's shot, and within half an hour after the commencement of the action he had seen the lieutenant who had commanded the vessel killed, and every man on board, with the exception of nine, killed or wounded. He himself had had the fleshy part of his thigh carried away by a round shot, yet, notwithstanding the agony which so frightful a wound must have caused him, he remained at his post, and only moved from it when it became necessary for the "Plover" to drop down for more men, and then he hoisted his flag on board the "Opossum," where he was soon wounded a second time. With the heroic spirit of a Nelson he continued to direct the action, supporting himself on the cookhouse by holding the mainstay. That being carried away by a shot from the forts, he was dashed on the deck, his head being hurt, and his ribs fractured by the fall. He still refused to abandon his post, and when, through excess of pain, he fainted, and was being rowed away insensible, he had no sooner

recovered his senses than he insisted on being taken on board the ship nearest to the batteries, and there he remained, and held the command until he sank exhausted by his wounds. Meanwhile the whole battle had been going against us; all the gunboats were aground, and if Commodore Tatnal of the American Navy, with a bold and generous spirit which will long be remembered by us, had not come to our assistance, we should have had no means of towing the reserves of marines to the place where they were landed for the purpose of storming the forts; an unlucky failure which cost us 434 in killed and wounded out of 1100 men who made the attack. Thus terminated the episode to the last Chinese war, which even after this repulse might have been averted, if the government of that country had felt as much reluctance to renew the fighting as was felt by our own.

The account of the subsequent operations in China as described in a moderate sized volume written by Dr. Rennie is one of the most interesting we have read.* The first place on Chinese territory of which we took possession was Chusan; no resistance was offered, and the inhabitants, and even the officials showed themselves rather willing than otherwise to assist us-certainly not without a view to their own profit-the shopkeepers re-hoisted the signboards they had put away when we withdrew from the city, and the familiar inscriptions of E. Moses and Sons, outfitters, from Aldgate Pump, and Jim Crow, fashionable tailor from Buckmaster's, London, again became visible. The shrewdness of the Chinese trader and his readiness to do business is remarkable; the allies had not been long in the place before a shop-window was decorated with a plentiful supply of hat ribbons with the names on them in gilt letters of the seventy European war vessels then in China; and an instance of their aptitude to meet a demand by a corresponding supply is furnished by Pun-lun who took advantage of the demand for the Imperial robes obtained by the loot of the Summer Palace, to send to Canton for all the theatrical dresses that could be got, which he sold to our countrymen at a very handsome profit.

One of our first proceedings after landing in China was to organise a corps of Coolies, and as from the increasing difficulty of raising recruits at home, and the recommendation of Chinese as substitutes for service in India by many persons competent to form an opinion on their suitability for the purpose, it is possible that we may eventually employ them there, it is worth while speaking of the manner in which they behaved. The number we engaged was quite sufficient to enable an opinion to be formed of their usefulness. To each regiment four hundred were attached, who were superintended by one officer, two sergeants, and thirty veterans selected from the regiment. Their dress was merely a nankin shirt, with a distinguishing mark stamped on it, with very loose trousers, which by the way they were in the habit of pulling up when on parade *The British Arms in North China and Japan. Murray.

or elsewhere, and fanning themselves vigorously. When first enlisted it was found necessary to look sharply after them, in order to prevent them from deserting, which they did more with the view probably of taking the bounty a second time than to escape serving, an inference we may draw from the fact that when the "Assistance" was wrecked, (a consequence as some appear to have thought of her sailing on a Friday) although there were more than eight hundred on board, only seven deserted. It was not from want of ingenuity either in finding a method of escape. When a coolie had taken the bounty, it was natural that he should desire to expend a portion of it in making purchases, and a European soldier was usually sent with him to see that he returned to his quarters. The crowds in Chinese streets gazing at some open air exhibition are numerous, and it not unfrequently happened that while coolie and escort were staring at the performance, the former would quietly slip his arms out of his shirt and let it fall to the ground, and then changing his position it was next to impossible to distinguish him from his countrymen, who, in the warm weather, were many of thein in the same costume. At last it became customary to hold them by their tails, but even this was not always effectual, for one of them after leading his escort from one shop to another ended by entering a shop, where he bought some pepper, which he threw into the Englishman's eyes and then made off. When the motive for desertion was past, however, they, as we have already said proved themselves loyal servants as well as exceedingly useful ones. Their courage was tested in the attack on the Taku Forts. The French employed those they had enlisted in carrying the scaling ladders up to the forts, as they did subsequently in Cochin China, but we did not use them for this service, still we sent them under fire to bring away the wounded, which they did with great willingness, showing no signs of fear. So much for the coolies, we must now return to our own troops.

We all remember that our troops suffered severely from sickness, which at that time was generally attributed to the climate, but we now have the mature opinion of Dr. Rennie, that the climate had much less to do with it than the over-crowding on board the transports and in the tents. The latter were the ordinary bell tents, and into each of these at least twice as many men were crowded as ought to have been placed in them with a due regard for sanitary considerations. Representations were made to the military authorities on this point, but the reply was that the exigencies of the service would not admit of any reduction of the number in each tent. Add to this, that the only ventilation of these tents was by raising the loose flap which hangs from the canvas close to the ground, and which the soldiers carefully lowered, and that they still further vitiated the air in them by smoking; and there will be no reason to be surprised at the statement that even in the pure dry air of one of the stations the sickness was very

great, while at another where the men were in the habit of revelling in unripe fruit, and the atmosphere seemed likely to produce serious mortality there was scarcely any sickness at all, though the buildings in which the men were quartered reeked with the foulest odours. Considering how unanimous medical writers are in condemning this form of tent, some alteration ought certainly to be made in them, than which nothing is easier. Possibly some of the sickness among our men may have arisen from the condition of the meat served out to them. The cattle were so crowded on board the transports that a pestilential disease broke out among them, which was so fatal that in the case of one cargo out of two hundred and fifty oxen shipped all but eighty-five perished within ten days, and those landed must have been labouring under the same disease when they were slaughtered for the soldiers: and this was not an exceptional case, for so great was the proportion of animals that died of disease, that it was estimated that every pound of meat eaten. cost the Government twelve shillings. The proof that the beef had a good deal to do with the prevalence of disease among our men is still further established by the fact that the Sikhs who ate none of it, and mutton only once a-week, escaped almost entirely. It cannot be made too widely known that nothing can be more unprofitable than crowding animals into a transport; disease is almost certain to be generated, and even if the voyage is so short that they have not time to die on board ship, and time is not given them to die a natural death after they have been landed, they lose so much in weight that from a pecuniary point of view alone it would be better to stow them less closely.

Fortunately the force which the allies had in China was strong enough to allow of a considerable mortality, and yet remain capable of effecting the objects of the expedition. The first movement in the direction of the Taku Forts was to Pehtang. The country across which our army had to march was a great mud-flat, and their first night on shore was spent in this with no other covering than a blanket, and a waterproof sheet to every three men. So deep was the mud that officers and men were wading about in it with their trousers rolled up and barefooted, and as the country all round was in the same condition, there was no choice but to expel the whole of the inhabitants of Pehtang, numbering between twenty and thirty thousand, and quarter our troops in their houses. No resistance was offered, the Chinese troops in obedience to the orders given them having abandoned the fort on our advance, not without making some rough arrangements in the way of explosive machines for damaging their successors. The advance from Pehtang to Sinho was across a country equally bad, the artillery waggons had to be abandoned, and the guns were often embedded to their axles, and it is safe to infer that had a few earthworks been thrown up here and there by the Chinese, great damage might have been inflicted on our troops before they reached and captured Sinho,

which was effected with very trifling loss. Here again the French soldiers showed themselves as alert in looting as in fighting, and managed to get possession of an immense quantity of silk and fur dresses.

Though looting could not be entirely prevented notwithstanding the orders issued, discipline was much better preserved than among our allies the love of our men for samshu, which bears a strong resemblance to whisky, was too strong, however, to prevent some of them indulging in it to such an excess as to procure for them a flogging for drunkenness, or, as the coolies expressed it, samshupigeon. A surgeon of the 44th, who was guilty of the same offence, fell with a private of the Buffs and a number of coolies into the hands of the Tartars, whom he took for a party of Sikhs, and marched towards them instead of away from them. They were liberated by the Governor-General of the province, and rejoined our army at Tangkoo, where the sergeant, who was an Irishman, told wonderful stories of what he had heard while among the enemy, and when asked by Sir Robert Napier how he could understand what they said, seeing that he did not know a word of Chinese, except the equivalent for "go on," used to urge the coolies to mend their pace, he simply answered: "Sure, sir, them fellows have no saycrets at all at all." The fact that with the exception of the private and a few of the coolies the rest of the party were returned to us, would seem to indicate that the brutal treatment to which Mr. Bowley, Captain Brabazon, and the others who subsequently fell into the hands of the enemy were subjected, arose from a revengeful feeling excited by the sufferings of their countrymen who were expelled from Pehtang, in order that the allied troops might occupy their dwellings, not to speak of cruelties perpetrated on some of the unfortunate inhabitants, which excited so much terror among them, that many women drowned themselves to avoid a worse fate. It was from this same sergeant that we received the statement that private Moyse was put to death for refusing to kowtoo before Sang-ko-lin-sin, a statement so much at variance with his own treatment and that of the Chinese who were with him, who merely had their tails cut off, and were then returned to our service, that it was hardly worthy of credit; and Dr. Rennie says that he since heard, on good authority, that two or three of the prisoners died from disease, and that none of them were put to death.

Little time was lost in pushing on to Tangkoo, which was taken after a sharp cannonade against the forts, which was responded to by the Chinese with equal warmth, though with little effect, from their aiming their guns too high-the usual fault in their practice. Notwithstanding the length and severity of our fire, very few dead were found in the place, and from the fact that Dr. Rennie went round the defences immediately afterwards without finding twenty dead bodies, it may be inferred that it did little