384 Voyage of the Novara. 



kwei, now employed for barracks and the officers of the Eng- 

 lish and French commissariat, while a much less pretentious 

 building had been assigned to the Tartar general for his 

 present residence. 



The Commodore had reached head-quarters and was sit- 

 ting at the tea-table with General Straubenzee, when an alarm 

 of fire was heard. The '' Braves " had fired a house close by 

 in the hope, it should seem, that the flames would catch the 

 barracks as well as the powder depot, or at all events compel 

 the English to withdraw their troops from the post, and give 

 an opportunity for inflicting some loss on them. Fortunately, 

 however, what had been set on fire burned quite out, without 

 fulfilling the anticipations of the " Braves." 



In the course of a stroll, which our Commodore took with 

 the General somewhat later in the night, they perceived that 

 the Chinese kej)t up a continual flight of rockets against the 

 sentries and buildings of the post, from a small eminence not 

 two hundred yards distant, which was provided with ram- 

 parts and cannon, and the Austrian 'guests greatly marvelled 

 that no energetic steps were taken to obviate the disorders 

 produced by these guerilla bands of Chinese, who every night 

 with their incendiarism and fire-balls kept the city, the head- 

 quarters, and the pickets in constant alarm, seeing that their 

 inactivity only tended to animate the courage of the Chinese, 

 while in such harassing service, unattended as it was with 

 any results, their own forces, already very much reduced, 

 v/cre proportionately weakened. 



