Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/347

Rh leads from the river across the inner extremity of the mud slough. It was here in 1859, that so many of our men were shot down in the unsuccessful attempt to storm the southern fort. We carried the place without much difficulty a twelve-month afterwards. The only entrance into this fort is across a wide ditch from behind. As for me, I passed inside it without a word being asked; for indeed there were only one or two coolies loitering about the enclosure. The walls are of great thickness, and built, as formerly, of mud and millet-stalks—a composition well adapted to resist shot. Within were two batteries of over fifty guns a-piece, one above the other, and commanding the entrance to the stream. Some of them, however, were rusty, badly mounted on their carriages, and altogether sadly in want of repair. Lastly, I noticed two large American smooth-bores lying half-buried in mud in front of the officers' quarters. On the whole the place wore the look of a deserted mud-quarry rather than a fortress. But I have been informed that a great change has since come over the scene—that these fortresses, one on each side of the Peiho, are now armed with Krupp guns and properly garrisoned; so that thus the defence of the capital has been secured after a scheme planned out and decided upon long before the Formosa difficulty cropped up. I myself saw a battery of Krupp guns landed at Tientsin before I left that place of dark memories; and indeed there could be no question that the Chinese were hastily arming themselves with modern weapons, laying up stores of destructive projectiles and ammunition, and addressing themselves to the task of guarding their own shores from invasion. It may be—nay, it must be—that there is a purpose in all this. The Chinese Government have probably not been blind all these years to what has been going on in Japan, to say nothing of the visions they may entertain