_The Return of the Guards, and other Poems_, 1866. By permission of Messrs. Macmillan. As to the first, which deals with an incident of the war with China, and is presumably referred to in 1860, 'Some Seiks and a private of the Buffs (or East Kent Regiment) having remained behind with the grog-carts, fell into the hands of the Chinese. On the next morning they were brought before the authorities and commanded to perform the _Ko tou_. The Seiks obeyed; but Moyse, the English soldier, declaring that he would not prostrate himself before any Chinaman alive, was immediately knocked upon the head and his body thrown upon a dunghill.'--Quoted by the author from _The Times_. The Elgin of line 6 is Henry Bruce, eighth Lord Elgin (1811-1863), then Ambassador to China, and afterwards Governor-General of India. Compare _Theology in Extremis_ (_post_, p. 309). Of the second, which Mr. Saintsbury describes 'as one of the most lofty, insolent, and passionate things concerning this matter that our time has produced,' Sir Francis notes that the incident--no doubt a part of the conquest of Sindh--was told him by Sir Charles Napier, and that 'Truckee' (line 12) = 'a stronghold in the Desert, supposed to be unassailable and impregnable.' XCVIII, XCIX By permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1845; _Cornhill Magazine_, June 1871, and _Pacchiarotto_, 1876, Works, iv. and xiv. I can find nothing about HervÈ Riel. C-CIII The two first are from the 'Song of Myself,' _Leaves of Grass_ (1855); the others from _Drum Taps_ (1865). See _Leaves of Grass_ (Philadelphia, 1884), pp. 60, 62-63, 222, and 246. CIV, CV By permission of Messrs. Macmillan. Dated severally 1857 and 1859. CVI _Edinburgh Courant_, 1852. Compare _The Loss of the 'Birkenhead'_ in _The Return of the Guards, and other Poems_ (Macmillan, 1883), pp. 256-58. Of the troopship _Birkenhead_ I note that she sailed from Queenstown on the 7th January 1852, with close on seven hundred souls on board; that the most of these were soldiers--of the Twelfth Lancers, the Sixtieth Rifles, the Second, Sixth, Forty-third, Forty-fifth, Seventy-third, Seventy-fourth, and Ninety-first Regiments; that she struck on a rock (26th February 1852) off Simon's Bay, South Africa; that the boats would hold no more than a hundred and thirty-eight, and that, the women and children being safe, the men that were left--four hundred and fifty-four, all told--were formed on deck by their officers, and went down with the ship, true to colours and discipline till the end. CVII-CIX