The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-09-15
CHINESE PIRATES.
Their Terrible Crimes and No Less Terri
BILE Punishment

BILE Punishment.
Some of the exploits of those red row
ers are curiously interesting. If any of
my readers have sailed up the Canton
river they will recall the Chinese fort
ress of the Boca Tigris at it's mouth,
on the starboard side as you enter
Down by the water side a long white
parapet stretches along the shore: at
each end wall of masonry reaches up
the hill, and disappears over the crest.
Whether there is a fourth wall out of
sight, Joining 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 fortress was attacked;
but the storming party pulled quietly
around the headland, and forming on
the beach, clambored 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 it but to sur
render, 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
makee ready for you!"
But this is depression. What we
are after is the pirates. II was an
earlier commandant of this same fort
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 lasted all
day, and with such havoc as may be
left to the imagination, captured him
and whatever fragments of his fleet
were still afioat. This disaster was
partly avenged the next year, when the
Chinese admiral, with a hundred junks,
attacked another fleet on the same
cruising ground Great numbers of the
pirates were destroyed and some 200
taken prisoners. Those who are famil-
lar with Chinese methods can easily
judge how long ago the 200 were kept
from joining their bloody comrades in
the shades below. In another encoun-
ter not far from the same place, before
the combatants 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 at
tackled them so fiercely that they could
not be beaten off, and actually cut out
several junks from the imperial fleet.
The fortunes of war varied. With pro-
voking impartialty and apparently
with no ethical preference, victory
would perch on the standard of the
pirates quite as often as on the ban
ners of the righteous defenders OF their
country's commerce. We read of whole
fleets engaged fighting all day ana All
night, two days, even three days at
time, 200 or 300 junks on a side, ana
a drawn game at the end. NO chlid S
play this. At one time the admiral Is
lying quietly at anchor among the ISL
ands. when suddenly 200 pirate craft
slip around the headland and pounce
upon him with an onset so furious that:
in spite of A vigorous defense of 25 of
his fleet are gone with their captors be-
fore he can get up his anchors ana
chase them. These encounters We're not
confined to the sea. There were fire.
ouent raids on the villages that lined
the harbors and rivers.