our flag going up, with our men taking cover in a passage, when two Chinese nipped out of a gateway about twenty yards away, and came for us with fixed bayonets, firing their magazines as they marched, from the hip. My lieutenant had emptied his revolver and was drawing his sword to defend himself when I chipped in and “bagged the brace.” No sooner did the enemy in the South and North forts recognise the fall of the inner fort, than they turned several guns on to the occupants, but the gunboats were by this time moving down the river, except the damaged “Gilyak”; and the British and Japanese sailors retaliated with two captured guns, gradually causing the Chinese fire to diminish. There was no time to be wasted, and in a quarter of an hour the force was on the move again, marching along the covered way between the N.W. and N. forts. While still a quarter of a mile from the N. fort a deafening explosion, followed by an immense column of dust and smoke, was heard and felt in the direction of the “Iltis.” So great was the shock, that it was distinctly heard, and the effects clearly visible to the fleet fourteen miles away. A shell from the “Algerine” had exploded a 6-inch gun magazine, and for some time the air was so thick with dust that the men belonging to the landing party could scarcely see. They, however, jumped on to the mud parapet, and commenced to cheer the gunboats, but were driven down again by a shell which landed just below them. The moral effect of a disaster like this must be tremendous, but the gunners redoubled their fire, and two minutes later the “Iltis” got badly ‘hulled’ several times, and lost heavily. The “Algerine,” owing to her by this time almost point-blank range, only got struck in her cowls and upper works, and her loss in men was comparatively small. From that moment the Chinese in the North fort lost heart, and no resistance was offered; so that in ten minutes’ time the Germans entered by one gate, the British by the landward gun ports; and the allied flags were hoisted over the last fort on the left bank of the river. An unexpected amount of opposition was offered by a single 6-inch Q.F. Armstrong in the South fort, but the captured guns in the last position, in conjunction with the gunboats, succeeded in silencing it after a desperate duel. The gun shield was found to have been struck seven times, and the cement emplacement was literally torn to pieces by shell fire. If the other guns had been served with the same devotion as this one, and those of the first fort to fall, the allies’ losses must have been doubled at least.