sailed from the Bocca Tigris into the sea to fight the pirates.  Paou gave him a tremendous drubbing, and gained a splendid victory.  In this battle which lasted from morning to night, the Mandarin Kwolang-lin, a desperate fellow himself, levelled a gun at Paou, who fell on the deck as the piece went off; his disheartened crew concluded it was all over with him.  But Paou was quick eyed.  He had seen the unfriendly intention of the mandarin, and thrown himself down.  The Great Mandarin was soon after taken with fifteen junks; three were sunk.  The pirate lieutenant would have dealt mercifully with him, but the fierce old man suddenly seized him by the hair on the crown of his head, and grinned at him, so that he might provoke him to slay him.  But even then Paou spoke kindly to him.  Upon this he committed suicide, being seventy years of age.

After several victories and reverses, the Chinese historian says our men-of-war escorting some merchant ships, happened to meet the pirate chief nicknamed “The Jewel of the Crew” cruising at sea.  The traders became exceedingly frightened, but our commander said,—­This not being the flag of the widow Ching-yih, we are a match for them, therefore we will attack and conquer them.  Then ensued a battle; they attacked each other with guns and stones, and many people were killed and wounded.  The fighting ceased towards evening, and began again next morning.  The pirates and the men-of-war were very close to each other, and they boasted mutually about their strength and valor.  The traders remained at some distance; they saw the pirates mixing gunpowder in their beverage,—­they looked instantly red about the face and the eyes, and then fought desperately.  This fighting continued three days and nights incessantly; at last, becoming tired on both sides, they separated.

To understand this inglorious bulletin, the reader must remember that many of the combatants only handled bows and arrows, and pelted stones, and that Chinese powder and guns are both exceedingly bad.  The pathos of the conclusion does somewhat remind one of the Irishman’s despatch during the American war,—­“It was a bloody battle while it lasted; and the searjent of marines lost his cartouche box.”

The Admiral Ting River was sent to sea against them.  This man was surprised at anchor by the ever vigilant Paou, to whom many fishermen and other people on the coast, must have acted as friendly spies.  Seeing escape impossible, and that his officers stood pale and inactive by the flag-staff, the Admiral conjured them, by their fathers and mothers, their wives and children, and by the hopes of brilliant reward if they succeeded, and of vengeance if they perished, to do their duty, and the combat began.  The Admiral had the good fortune, at the onset, of killing with one of his great guns the pirate captain, “The Jewel of the Crew.”  But the robbers swarmed thicker and thicker around him, and when the dreaded Paou lay him by the board, without help or hope, the