he had removed the Pathan's pugri from his head, replaced it with his own cap, and donned the borrowed headgear himself. Then he strutted up and down the platform amid the laughing applause of his comrades and the Gurkhas. The Pathan, highly amused, joined in the merriment. I had noticed a Dogra sepoy standing by himself with eyes fixed on the ground, lost in deep thought. Suddenly a cheery little Japanese soldier, motioning to the audience on the benches not to betray him, stole up quietly behind the Dogra, seized him round the waist, and lifted the astonished six-foot sepoy into the air. Then with a grin he replaced him on his feet, and with mutual smiles they shook hands.

When the day comes for our Indian army to fight shoulder to shoulder with its comrades of Japan, a bond stronger than a paper alliance will hold them; and their only rivalry will be as to which shall outstrip the other in their rush on the foe.

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 wellknown 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

GE

HONG KONG

EOGRAPHICALLY, 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.

Looked at from other than a military point of view, Hong Kong is an object-lesson of our Empire that should fill the hearts of Imperialists with pardonable pride. A little more than half a century ago it was but a bleak and barren island, tenanted only by a few fisherfolk. It produced nothing, and animal life could scarce be supported on it. But now, touched by the magic wand of British trade, how wonderful is the transformation! A magnificent city, with stately buildings climbing in tier after tier from the sea. The most European town between Calcutta and San Francisco. The third, some say the second, largest shipping port in the world. The harbour to which turn the countless prows of British, American, German, French, Austrian, and Japanese vessels; where the vast current of the trade of the world with the Far East flows in, to issue forth again in an infinitude of smaller streams to every part of China and the Philippines.

Yet, though the barren hillsides are covered with houses, though a large population of white men and yellow inhabit it, and its harbour is crowded with shipping, the island itself is still as unproductive as ever. Not merely is mineral wealth unknown and manufactures practically nil, but