The possession of the Hinterland has strengthened enormously the defence of Hong Kong from the landward side. Three passes, about 1,500 feet high, cross the last range of hills above Kowloon; and these can be easily guarded. The situation of a hostile army which had landed on the coast some distance away and endeavoured to march through the difficult and mountainous country of the mainland, would be hopeless in the presence of a strong defending force. Entangled in the narrow valleys, forced to cross a series of roadless passes over which even field‐guns must be carried bodily, fired at incessantly from the never‐ending hilltops, it would be unable to proceed far. A couple of regiments of Gurkhas or Pathans would be invaluable in such a country. Moving rapidly from hill to hill they could decimate the invaders almost with impunity to themselves. The garrison of Hong Kong previous to 1900 consisted of a few batteries R.A. to man the forts, some companies of the Asiatic Artillery or Hong Kong and Singapore Battalion Royal Artillery (a corps of Sikhs and Punjaubis raised in India for the defence of these two coast ports), one British infantry regiment, the Hong Kong Regiment (ten companies strong), and the Hong Kong Volunteers, Europeans, and Portuguese half‐castes. The Asiatic Artillery were armed with muzzle‐loading mountain guns. Such a force was absurdly small for such a large and important place. General Sir William Gascoigne, K.C.M.G., was forced to still further denude it of troops in order to send men hurriedly to North China to defend Tientsin. He was left with his garrison companies of Royal Artillery, half of the Royal Welch Fusiliers and Asiatic Artillery, and four‐fifths of the Hong Kong Regiment. The situation would have been one of extreme danger had a rising occurred in Canton and the southern provinces; and two regiments of General Gaselee’s original force were stopped on their way to the North. The 3rd Madras Light Infantry, under Lieutenant‐Colonel Teversham, was composed of men of that now unwarlike presidency. But the 22nd Bombay Infantry, under the command of Lieutenant‐Colonel R. Baillie, was formed from the fighting races of Rajputana and Central India and won many encomiums for their smartness in manœuvres over the steep hills and their satisfactory work altogether.