Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1899-09-21
CHINESE PIRATES
Their Terrible Crimes and No Less Terrible
Punishment.

INSlr lefriDie GrimeS ana NO Less IeIrlDie
Punishment.
1.-THE Scourge of the Eastern Seas"
are the pirates that infest the China
Sea and the Philippine Islands. John
s. Sewall relates several thrilling stor-
les of the Chinese vikings crimes and
their punishment in the Saltwater"
Century.
Some of the exploits of these red row
ers are curiously interesting. II any
Of my readers have sailed up the Can
ton River they will recall the Chinese
fortress of the Boca Tigris at its
mouth, on the starboard side as you
enter. Down by the waterside a long
white parapet stretches along the
shore; at each end a wall of masonry
reaches up the hill, and disappears
over the crest Whether there is 4
fourth wall out of sight, joining the
two and completing the square, | do
not remember; but certain British tars
could tell you-if they have lasted
from 1912 till this present year of
grace. During the opium war the fort
ress was attacked; but the storning
party pulled quietly around the head
land, and forming on the beach, clam
bered up over the hill. and the first
thing the Celestials knew their foe
was rushing down upon them from the
rear, and within the Enclosure. There
was nothing for 1t but to surrender,
which they did, bristling with wrath
at such breach of military manners.
In
More better fight where we makee
ready for your
But this is disgression. What we
are after is the pirates. 1T was an
earlier commandant of this same fort
ress who met with equally bad luck.
One of the fleets appeared in his neigh
borhood, and he sailed out to attack
it. The pirates surrounded him, and
after furious engagement, which last
ed all day, and with such havoc as may
be left to the imagination, captured
him and whatever fragments of his
feet were still afoat. This disaster
was partly avenged the next year,
when the Chinese admiral, with hun
dred junks, attacked another fleet on
the same cruising ground. Great num-
bers of the pirates were destroyed and
some two hundred taken prisoners.
Those who are familiar with Chinese
methods can easily judge how long the
two hundred were kept from joining
their bloody comrades in the shades
below In another encounter not far
from the same place, before the COM
batants could close upon one another,
it fell dead calm, whereupon crowds
of the pirates leaped into the sea like
savages, swan to the enemy with their
knives in their teeth, and attacked
them so fiercely that they could not be
beaten off, and actually cut out sew
era junks from the imperial feet The
fortunes of war varied. With prOvOk-
ing impartiality, and apparently with
no ethical preference, victory would
perch on the standard of the pirate
quite as often as on the banner of the
righteous defenders of their country's
commerce. We read of whole fleets
engaged, fighting all day and all night,
two days, even three days at a time,
two or three hundred junks on a side.
and a drawn game at the end. No
child's play this. At one time the adj
miral is lying quietly at anchor among
the islands, when suddenly two hum
dred pirate crate slip around the head
land, and pounce upon him with an on
set so furious that in spite of a vigor-
GUS defense, twenty-five Of his fleet
are gone with their captors before he
can get up his anchors and chase them.
These encounters were not confined to
the sea. There were frequent raids on
the villages that lined the harbo' 9st
rivers.