The Sun.
London, England, 1857-08-01 00:00:00

smoke, and before the booming sound reached us the big
shot struck the waters %bout 200 yards a-head, driving the

spray high up in the air.
It was a beautiful line, straight from the vessel's bows,
and the spot was carefully noted, for it showed the range
for which the lower tier of guns was laid.
Your Chinaman does not aim his guns at the moment
according to his judgment of the-distance of the object.
He practises at certain points which an assailant must
pass and notches the elevation on the carriage of the

gun.
Scarcely had the splash shown the gunner that his range
was short when another flash came from the higher tier.
The shot, with 'a rushing sound, passed over the ship a
little to the left, and dashing into a paddy field on our
port quarter sent a column of black mud up 30 feet.
All this time the Coromandel was advancing, and the
dawn was becoming day. It being certain that she was
within range, the fort opened in earnest at the steadily
advancing mark. First came a general salvo, then flash
after flash in rapid succession. Then the battery on the
other side of the island opened ; rushing sounds came
strangely near and the waters sometimes splashed the
deck. Fortunately the ricochetting shot which a China-
man best loves was out of the question, for his guns were
high up upon the hill, end a small steamer, moving stem
on at.a distance of 900 yards, is a little object and hard to
hit. The shot came near us and around us, but did not

strike,
We reached the island Hyacinth Island —and were
steaming up the left hand channel, directly to the fort.
Suddenly there was a concussion and a grating sound.
" Back your paddles, we are aground." We were aground
open a line of junks sunk across the channel. As soon as
the Chinese saw this they redoubled their fire. The boats
were cast off and told to row quietly under the land, while
the fort was occupied with firing at us. Lieutenant
Douglas took a dingy and a boat-hook and sounded the
obstacle. The Chinamen had left a narrow channel as an
escape hole for themselves, close under the bank beside
us ; all the rest was blocked.
The Coromandel was too firmly fixed to benefit by this
information. It was dead low water, and she must float
in a few minutes. Meanwhile she was fulfilling her pre-
scribed duty, which was to take the shot of the fort. The
crew ran up and down the deck to try to start her, but in
vain. The Coromandel did not fire a shot; in fact, she
had only one gun loaded. She could not afford to make
a smoke at this critical part of the river.
But now Koppel thought he had restrained himself long
enough to fulfil the Admiral's orders. He came upon the
paddlebox of the Hong-Kong gunboat, which bore his
pennant ; and, having with his quick glance noted the
soundings and the result, stood in between the Coroman-
del and the bank. There he was like a man enjoying him-
self. His blue trousers tucked up to the top of his Rus-
sian boots, his white pith hat, his small, active, springy
figure, his constitutional good-humoured, devil-may-care
laugh—there was a man who, without the least ostenta-
tion, was ready to go into any fire that gunpowder and
iron could get up, and around him were men who were
quite ready to follow him. " May I pass, Sir ?" " Yes,
pass ; we are aground."
Immediately behind the Hong-Kong comes the Haughty,
admirably handled. She is towing the boats of the Fury,
Inflexible, and Cruiser, la.ige steamers which can only
send their captains and their crews into these shallow
channels. Lieutenant Hamilton takes his little ship
through the narrow, steams directly for the fort, and
diverts the fire from the poor Coromandel, who, however,
is making violent °efforta to get free. Next come the
Bustard and the Tribuue.i They are waved to pass where
the Hong-Kong and the Haughty passed, but they
do ' not see, or they think they know better,
rile they get hopelessly aground. It is a pity,
for the Hong-Kong has met with some stakes
of the other side of the channel, - and those
junks whose painted ports we leave been so long looking at
at, and which remained so steadily inactive while the
range was uncertain, have now opened fire, and are plump-
ing round shot into her with an uncomfortable precision.
I saw her struck three times while I looked at her.
The Plover gets up beside the Hong Kong. but cannot
break the barrier. It is here that Sergeant Christian had
his head taken off by a round shot. And now the Opossum
having cast off her boats goes up the right hand channel at
full speed, and dashes into the fire. Several of the other
gunboets are .aground astern; but the ships' boats have
taken to their oars. Crowded with men, and cheering
lustily, galley and gig, pinnace, launch, and barge come
racing up. The scene is like a regatta, but Death picks his
victims as they pass.
But now the tide is making and the Coromandel is free.
As she steams up tothe foot of the fort the fire slackens—
only now and then an obstinate gun gives out. The hill is
now comparatively free from smoke, and the scene is as
plain from the paddlebox of the Coromandel as if it were
enacted upon the stage for our amusement. :'The boats'
crews and Marines have landed and are mounting that
steep hill. They have taken the precipitous side, where the
fat Chinamen, who had prepared to receive them by the zig-
zag path, never thought they would come. The Chinese
gunners are trying in vain to depress their guns so as to
sweep thorn with grape. Failing that, they are rolling down
32-pound shot upon them, and throwing stink-pots which
do not explode, and three-pronged spears. They have have
not much time for this amusement. Commodore Elliott,
with a middy by his side, is running a race with Captain
Boyle, who commands the Marines, and is nearly up to the
embrasures. Captain Boyle fires his revolver at a Chinaman
who is trying to fire his matchlock at him. He misses him,
for the gallant captain is too mach blown with his race to
shcot with accuracy. The Chinaman in return rolls a
couple of huge shot down at the captain and then takes up
a spear of prodigious length and hurls it at the middy. A
shot from Commodore Elliott's revolver settles this brave
man's career. I saw him afterwards near where he fell,
grim and fierce in death.
Mired with the marines, and but little behind the fore
rank, climbed the post-captains: and commanders. We can
recognise Corbett, and Forsyth, and Leckie (and by his
side Major Kearney, conspicuous by his helmet-shaped
pith hat), and Fellows& contending vigorously with' the
laws of gravitation. Eagell is hit ; no, he has only slip-
pod while dodging a roun 1 shot, and has rolled halfway
down the hill. He gets up and shakes himself, and re-
commences. Mounting the same precipitous ascent with
quick elastic step, his flag-lieutenant, Fowler, by his side,
goes the Admiral himself. He went off from the Coroman-
del in his own boat, unobserved by many on board. Ho
has no weapon, not even a walking-stick, to help him up;
yet he outstrides many of the marines. He goes to see
what next is to be doneand wewill make haste to join him.
This part of the affair is soon over. The gunners sulkily
retire as the storming party arrive, bat they firo their guns
within 50 yards of their assailants. They walk away down
the back of the hill, and it requires many shots from the'
Marines to make them run. The Marines fire very badly;
running up hill is not a good preparation for rifle-shooting
at moving objects.
From the top of the hill I have a most magnificent pa-
' noramic vie vof the operations below. Lieut. Fowler has
brought one of the Chinese guns to bear upon the junks,
and the junks fire up at us, but neither do much damage.
Now Elliot and his captains run down to their boats and
follow the Haughty, which is already clear of the island
and up with the junks beyond. The marines descend into
the paddyfields at the foot of that side of the hill fort
which faces the junks, and, up to the waist in water, they
take pot shots at the Chien. The Haughty drives right
stem on into ono of the two large junks that have been
sweeping the channel, and cracks her like a nutshell. For-
eyth jumps first on board, and the crew jump overboard.
It is the old story, " 'Spo-e you come, I must go." The
shots must be flying furiously down there, for thirty
junks aro blazing away their twelve guns each at the
intruders, who rush into their creek from our side
o
boats that are' equally rapid in their
discharges that have gone up on the
andthe
hfeoar
other side. How any mortal thing can live in that hell of
htharege island,
an
upond
flying lion it seems impossible to conceive. The secret, I
believe, lies in the resolution of our men. They pull directly-
up alongside, and from the elevation of the guns the inevit-
able broadside of grape passes over their heads. I saw this
happen in the case of Commodore Elliot's boat, which
emerged unharmed from a discharge I thought had annihi-
lated it. The junk had coolly waited till the boat was
alongside, and then poured in its shot, It all passed high,
and when the smoke cleared away the crew were running
across the paddyfields, andthe Marines were shooting them.
The game was soon up. First came a rush of fire and a
loud explosion. A pillar of white smoke rises high into
the air and swells at the top like a Doric column. Then
another and another, and the guns cease, and the cannon
smoke blows away, and the beat's crews are rowing from
junk to junk, and in two long lines almost as far as the
eye can reach, lie the junks—some kindling, some in full
blaze, but all stranded and abandoned. In one of these the
sailors rescued an old man and a boy, chained to a gun, and
left to burn. In another, a woman and child were tied
with whisps of bamboo to a 32 pounder. There were many
which the sailors could not enter, and perhaps these also
had their victims.
We have been looking down upon the junks which Pay
across the Fatshan Branch, and also along the windine
creek that stretches away at right angles to the left. Our
view of those which lay along the creek that bears to the
right was not quite so near. Bat here the contest ceased
about the same time. Right and left, covering an immense
extent of narrow water, the junks lie, prizes either to us
or the flames. We have leisure now to count them—they
use 72.
For the first time I appreciate the far-sighted wisdom of
the admiral's plan of attask. By leading up his ships at
dead low water he not only obtained. the advantage of a
rising tide when his steamers grounded upon the shoals and
unknown impediments, but he also made sure of finding
the junks all aground, knowing, as he dld, that they
were moored along each shore, to leave the channel clear
for ordinary traffic. Thus the crews were obliged either
to fight or run. Had he taken them at even quarter
flood they had been afloat. Some of the hindermost
would have been destroyed, and by fire or by sinking
would have choked the channel, while the rest would have
escaped up the numberless creeks, which the Chinamen
c nly know.
:While some are plundering and some are thinking of
breakfast there) is heavy firing in the distance. People
ask where is Keppel ? We must follow his fortunes ; for
all is not over yet, and there is much to tell.
When Commodore Koppel passed us at dawn he steamed
away up the channel to the right of Hyacinth Island, until
he came under the six-gun battery, and within fire of the
junks. Hera his vessel ran aground, and, the Plover
coming up, the Commodore transferred himself to her ;
but as she could not get up, he got into his own galley,
and, followed by the rowboats of the Calcutta, the
Bittern, and the Niger, pulled straight away through the
tire. The big junk that lay across the channel was
boarded in her own smoke. As usual, when the assailants
grew very near the Chinamen Bred a broadside and also a
train, and slipped into the water on the other side. The
boats were scarcely free of her when she blew up. Right
in among the 35 junks dashed Koppel and his cheering
dare-devils, receiving their fire and driving the crews
away as they approached. Vain were 'the Ciainemen's
stinkpots, their three-pronged spears, and their ingenious
nets, so contrived as to fall over a boat's crew and catch
them like herrings, while they spear them through the
meshes. To utilise such ingenious inventions John China-
man must wait till the boats come alongside, and this ho
has not yet tutored his nerves to accomplish.
Through this wilderness of junks they pulled, driving
out their crews by sheer audacity, and leaving little to be
bs done by those who should come after. They shot
through the lines up in to the vacant channel. Some of
his boats had been hulled by the junks ; perhaps some
lingered to pay a visit to a deserted Chinaman, or to 'stop
his mouth ; but Koppel still pressed onward, and where he
goes he always gets some to follow. Where could he b 3
going ? Was it information or was it intuition ?or was he
resolved to attack with his seven boats the city of Fatahan
and its population of 200,000 people 2 I have not asked
him and he has not said, but I suspect the city was his
object. With four galleys and three boomboats, carrying
a gun each in their bows, they speed away from the con-
quered junks and hold on for nearly four miles ; but now
there are junk waste in sight, and every one knows that a
tight is corning... A little further on, and they come upon
their prey, and also upon one of those strong positions
which the Chinese have now learnt to take.
At the part of the Fatehan Branch—which they bad