Very glad, too, we were to get rid of him, for the old gentleman had got "on our nerves", and we had begun to dislike him intensely. Without a spark of humanity, and unable to sympathize with our heavy losses, he showed by his manner, even if not by his actual words, that he regarded us practically as his employees, and, now that our work was accomplished, was only too anxious to see us started on our way home. According to agreement with the Admiralty, the cost of the personnel of the expedition would cease when he had sent us to Hong-Kong, so it was quite natural that he should try to hasten our departure. However, he showed so little consideration for everybody that we hated him. He was also much incensed at Helston’s absolute refusal to allow his men to aid in refitting the captured ships; but Helston rightly considered that they deserved a rest after their three months’ hard work, and a right good time did they have, leave being given after morning "divisions" to every man not actually required on board, and they indulged themselves to their hearts’ content in securing trophies, playing football, seining for fish, and scrambling about the island. What strange beings blue-jackets and marines are! They asked to be allowed to mount guard over the graves on One Gun Hill during the time the squadron remained, and worked out all the details themselves. Helston found their arrangements such that every man in the squadron would at one time or other do his turn of duty on that plateau, and the only alteration he made in the scheme was to detail two midshipmen for duty there in charge of the hilltop, changing them every twenty-four hours. Many of the men also went ashore in their working suits, and the blacksmiths and the armourers obtained permission to take their tools with them. We could see from the ship that they were working round the big Krupp gun, but did not interfere, and in about ten days they asked Helston and myself to go up there. We found that they had constructed a stout iron fence, enclosing the gun-pit and the graves, planted small fir-trees all round it, and actually built a solid stone cairn supporting a great boulder of some hard rock. It had evidently come from the beach at the foot of the hill; but we never asked how they had managed to haul it up, though we shrewdly suspected that they had forced the coolies to do this for them. They had smoothed and polished the faces of this boulder, and on them had engraved the names of all the men buried there. On one face were also the names of those killed previously—during the fight south of Hong-Kong and during the operations outside the island. Strange fellows they are, for, probably, if Helston had given them orders to do this, the work would not have been carried out half so substantially.