All that day reports of houses used as barracks half collapsing under the heavy rain reached the station. My friends who were living with the Gurkha officers were nearly washed out.

Once during the occupation of Shanhaikwan, when a similar deluge rendered the Chinese huts occupied by some foreign troops there untenable, their commander sought the aid of the colonel of the Gurkha Regiment, who offered to share the village in which his men were quartered with the others. The offer was gratefully accepted. The Gurkhas made their guests welcome; but the latter soon began to jeer at and insult them, and call them coolies—the usual term of reproach which the Continental troops hurled at our sepoys. Now, the Gurkhas are not naturally either pacific or humble; and it was only with the greatest difficulty that the fiery little soldiers were restrained from drawing their deadly kukris and introducing the guests to that national and favourite weapon. On the conduct of his men being reported to the foreign commander, he sent a written, but not very full, apology to the Gurkha colonel.

Towards evening the rain ceased, and the floods subsided as rapidly as they had arisen. So the following day saw us on our way back to Tientsin. At one of the stations an old friend of mine entered our carriage. He was an officer of the 4th Punjaub Infantry, Captain Gray, the son of a well‐known and very popular Don of Trinity College, Dublin. He had just received a report from the native officer commanding a detachment in a village near the canal which runs beside the railway. This jemadar had been sitting in front of his quarters watching the boats pass, when something about one of them aroused his suspicion and caused him to order the boat to stop and come into the bank. Three Chinamen in it sprang out and rushed away into the high crops. The boat was laden with cases, which, on search, proved to contain eighty new barrels of Mauser and Mannlicher magazine rifles. Besides these there were five boxes of cartridges and several casks of powder. This is but a small instance of the enormous extent to which the smuggling of arms goes on. The brigands were provided with weapons of the latest pattern and excellent make. The Germans are the chief offenders here as in Africa and elsewhere.

Another officer of the 4th Punjaub joined our train later on. He was Lieutenant Stirling, who worthily gained the D.S.O. for his brave exploit when Major Browning, of his regiment, fell in an attack with eighty men on walled villages held by thousands of brigands. Stirling refused to abandon the body, and carried it back, retiring slowly over seven miles of open country, attacked by swarms of mounted robbers, who feared to charge home upon the steady ranks of the gallant Punjaubis. He was wounded himself in the fight.

In the evening we arrived at Tientsin.

CHAPTER VIII
OUR STRONGHOLD IN THE FAR EAST
HONG KONG AND THE KOWLOON HINTERLAND

HONG KONG

GEOGRAPHICALLY, of course, Hong Kong is very far from North China. But it was the base of our expeditionary force in the recent campaign. From it went the first troops that helped to save Tientsin; and one brigade of Indian regiments was diverted from General Gaselee’s command to strengthen its garrison. For in the event of disturbances in Canton, or a successful rebellion in the southern provinces, it would have been in great danger. As our base for all future operations in the Far East, it is of vast military as well as naval and commercial importance and well merits description. In complications or wars with other Powers, Hong Kong would be the first point in the East threatened or assailed. Lying as it does on what would be our trans‐Pacific route to India, it is almost of as much importance to our Empire as Capetown or the Suez Canal. Its magnificent dockyards, which are capable of taking our largest battleships on the China station, are the only ones we possess east of Bombay; and so it is of equal value to our fleet, besides being the naval base for coal, ammunition, and supplies, without which the finest ship that floats would be helpless.