hostile act on their part to give us an excuse for one. But none came; and we sighed discontentedly at the loss of such a golden opportunity. Although the Chinese force numbered 4,000, armed with guns, Mausers and Winchesters, and our column counted barely 400 all told, we felt little doubt as to the result of a fight between us. By the following morning Admiral Ho and his mandarins had evidently come to the conclusion that we were more dangerous neighbours than the rebels; so he proceeded to move off from our vicinity. All that day and the next we watched bodies of troops, clad in long red or blue coats, with enormous straw hats slung like shields on their backs or covering their heads like giant mushrooms, marching out of the town and stringing out into single file along the narrow paths between the paddy‐fields as they moved off into the mountains beyond Samchun. Above their heads waved innumerable banners—green, red, blue, parti‐coloured, or striped in many lines horizontally or vertically. By the following evening all had disappeared, with the exception of about 400, as we afterwards ascertained, left behind to garrison the town. This forlorn hope, I doubt not, were none too well pleased at remaining in such unpleasant proximity to us. Our arrival at the frontier was undoubtedly responsible for the retirement of Admiral Ho’s army. For he had been for some time comfortably settled in Samchun without evincing the least anxiety to follow up the rebels, who were reported to be laying waste the country farther on, pillaging the villages, torturing the officials, and levying taxes on the inhabitants. His departure removed a constant source of danger; for his undisciplined troops might have been tempted to cross the boundary into our territory and harass the villagers under our protection.