MOKE CRUISING AFTER PIRATES. 331 



" I have forty-four junks, each with eight or ten 

 guns on board, and 1600 troops, besides the junks' 

 crews," he replied. 



All I thought I did not utter ; but telling him to 

 take charge of the junks, the forty-seven guns, and the 

 remains of the town, as I must be off, and also to make 

 what report he liked, 1 bade him good-bye, and made for 

 Macao as fast as I could. From there I sent my injured 

 men across to Hong-Kong, and started immediately 

 again for the westward. As I left the gallant Mandarin 

 and his war-junks, and before I got clear of the passage 

 between the islands, he had opened fire, but at what I 

 could not see. I heard some time afterwards that the 

 pirates returned directly the gun-boat was out of sight, 

 and drove the warriors from their island, who then 

 retreated as fast as a fair wind would take them.^ 



' I was much amused when I returned to England, at a penny 

 illustrated newspaper which had been sent to my address, soon after 

 this piratical aflFair had taken place. Amidst any amount of smoke 

 and fire, men mounted on ardent steeds are represented galloping 

 about in all directions, armed with long spears, shields, and battle- 

 axes, — these are the pirates. Other men, with helmets on, and 

 clothed in complete armour, are closely engaged with these mounted 

 warriors ; some are in the act of springing on shore from numerous 

 boats, which are just discernible amidst the fire, smoke, and con- 

 fusion, — these represent the gallant British tars, the Opossum's 

 crew. It must have been a fertile imagination that got all this 

 together, to show what piracy in China was like ! 



