THE INLAND SEA KBVISITED. 57 



flag, the Stars and Stripes. What a picnic our friends 

 had, and how they must have admired us blazing away 

 at 2000 yards ! (We had learnt a lesson at Kagosima, 

 and did not try any more point-blank range with these 

 people of the " rising sun.") The smaller ships then 

 took the batteries on their flank. Small-arm companies 

 were landed, and a quantity of ammunition expended 

 by firing into the thick cover. The leading detach- 

 ments had got half-a-mile ahead to a gap in the hills, 

 where the enemy were supposed to be stockaded, and 

 ready to receive us, but none could be seen owing to the 

 thick cover. A nimble young sailor responded to the 

 call for some one who could climb. All sailors, although 

 they are supposed to climb like cats, and even hold on 

 by their eyelids, cannot manage to get up a tree, — I 

 ought rather to say not one in a hundred can. How- 

 ever, an active youngster was found, and he was soon 

 thirty feet from the ground, looking anxiously for the 

 enemy ahead. Just as he was about to give some 

 valuable information, he was hailed by such a shower of 

 bullets from all points (except from the direction of the 

 enemy), and particularly from his friends behind, and 

 further down the path, that down the tree he came a 

 good deal faster than he went up. The stockade was 

 all the same found and captured. The territory on the 



