"After we had passed Hsinkow on the way down by boat we noticed parties of grey-coated soldiers on the left bank marching down. There might be twenty in a party and sometimes a hundred. In conversation with them we learned that they were Chilhi or Shantung men, and belonged to Yuan Shih K'ai's army. Their General was named Wu, a very friendly man who said that he had a force of three thousand, and that they were bound for Hanyang. Our boat outstripped them, and on reaching Tsaitien we found it still under {127} Revolutionary control, but with no soldiers there beyond the crews of some twenty fighting junks at anchor. There had been a thousand men in the place, but they had marched up the river before our arrival, said to be bound for Anluh. We reached there on Saturday evening, and at daybreak the following morning the gunjunks got up anchor and made for up-river. The Imperialists did not put in an appearance till Sunday afternoon about two o'clock, when some forty native boats came in crowded with soldiers. They had also on board half a dozen mules and probably guns, but these were not visible. They had large supplies of ammunition. By the time they landed all trace of the Revolutionists had disappeared. No one interfered with them, and they interfered with no one. There might have been close on a thousand men in that lot. All afternoon and evening there was heavy firing up-river. The people said it was the Revolutionists attacking the rear of the party up at Hsinkow, and that they had driven it back, but the puzzle was how the advance contrived to reach Tsaitien without either side apparently having seen the other. We left Tsaitien about ten o'clock on Monday, at which time the Imperialists were all in their tents engaged on their breakfast. There was no sign that they intended making any further move that day. It is impossible to reach Hankow by the Han route, as both parties fired on every boat seen. We therefore crossed the Machia Lake, and came out beyond Hanyang. Here a large force of several thousand Revolutionists was setting out by land for Tsaitien, and had the weather been favourable, they would have reached there last night. As it is, they will have to wait for fine weather, and then some further interesting news may be forthcoming from that quarter." [Illustration: HOW THE IMPERIALISTS CROSSED THE HAN. One of the three bridges built on boats across the river while the revolutionaries were quarrelling among themselves.]