The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1899-09-07
CHINESE PIRATES.


"The Scourge of the Eastern Seas" are
the pirates that infest the China Sea and
the Philippine Islands. John 8. Sewall
relates some thrilling stories of the
Chinese vikings' crimes and their pun
ishment in the "Salt. Water" Century
the September number:
"Some of the exploits of these red
rovers are curiously interesting. If any
of my readers have sailed up the Canton
River they will recall the Chinese for
tress Of the Boca Tigris at its mouth, on
the starboard side o. you enter. Down
BY the waterside long white parspet
stretches along the shore; at each end
q wall Of masonry reaches up the hill,
and disappears over the crest. Whether
there is q fourth wall out of sight, join.
ing the two and completing the square,
l do not now 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 stormine
party pulled quietly around the head
land, and forming on the beach, clam.
bered up over the hill, and the first
thing the Oelestials knew their foe was
was rushing down upon them from the
rear, and within the inclosure. There
was nothing for it but to surrender,
which they did, bristling with wrath at
such a breach of military manners.
"Hiyah Why you no come front side?
More better fight where we make ready
for you!'
but this is depression. What we
are after is the pirates. 1t was an earlier
commandant of this same fortress who
met with equally bad luck. One of the
fleets appeared in his neighborhood, and
he sailed out to attack it. The pirates
surrounded him, and after furious en-.
gagement, which lasted all day, and with
such havoc as may be left to the imagin-
alton, captured him and whatever frap.
ments Of his feet were still afoat. This
disaster was partly avenged next year,
when the Chinese admiral, with hun.
dred junks, attacked another feet on the
same cruising.ground. Great numbers
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 hun.
dred were kept from joining their bloody
comrades in the shades below. In an
other encounter not far from the same
place, before the combatants cou Id
close on one another, it fell dead calm
whereupon crowds of the pirates leaped
into the sea like savsges, swan to their
enemy with their knives in their teeth,
and attacked them so 6ercely that they
could not be beaten of, and actually cut
out several junks from the imperial
feet. The fortunes of war varied. With
provoking impartiality. and apparently
with no ethical preference, victory
would perch on the standard of the
pirate quite as often as upon the right.
eous defenders of their country's COM
merce. We read Of whole fleets engaged,
fighting all day and all night, two or
three hundred junks on a side, and
drawn game at the end. No child's play
this. At one time the admiral is lying
quietly at anchor among the islands,
when suddenly two hundred pirate craft
slip around the headland, and pounce
upon him with an onset so furious that,
in spite of vigorous defence, twenty.
five of his fleet are gone with their cap.
tors before he can get up his anchor and
chase them. These encounters were
not confined to the sea. There were
frequent raids on the villages that lined
the harbors and rivers"