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alone-900 men to face an deaths-until, in admiration of

army.

Swept by artillery, torn by musketry, utterly unsupported, for two mortal hours the conflict raged without a man moving to their assistance. Seven times the colours changed hands, Colonel Ferrier himself receiving his death-wound as he waved them above him, and at last ammunition began to fail. Yet still the British held doggedly to the ground they had won, desperate and despairing, choosing rather to die where they stood than endure the horror and the shame of a retreat. At last a small supply of ammunition, sufficient for two volleys, was brought up, and then, as two companies of "Tiradores" came up to its assistance, like a forlorn hope, the Legion charged and the Spanish infantry broke. In an instant Paez was amongst them. Charging again and again, his horsemen rode down whole battalions, whose destruction Morales, with 1500 cavalry, nursing a private grievance against La Torre, was content to witness without striking a blow. The advance of the 2nd and 3rd Divisions of Bolivar's army completed the rout, and within an hour of the charge of the Legion the whole Spanish army was flying in confusion. One regiment alone, the regiment of Valencia, commanded by Don Tomas Garcia, upheld the proud tradition of the Spanish infantry. Falling back in square, it beat off attack after attackand before its unbroken ranks the commanders of two of Bolivar's divisions met their

such heroism, even in Spaniards, the gallant Paez bade cease all further attack upon it.

Right up to Valencia, sixteen miles away, the relentless pursuit was continued. Whole battalions laid down their arms, and when La Torre rallied the wreck of his army on the hills north of the city, only the cavalry and two regiments of infantry remained to him.

Not to Bolivar, whose inaction during the battle has ever remained inexplicable, was due the victory which gave freedom to Venezuela-a victory won, almost in spite of him, by the desperate bravery of a band of foreign mercenaries, rightly acclaimed by the Liberator himself as "Salvadores di mi Patria." What were their losses cannot be told with certainty, so contradictory and so unreliable are the different accounts of the battle; but of one battalion, Brand's, which went into action with 17 officers and 320 men, 13 officers and over 100 men were killed; and the total loss of the Legion was probably little, if any, short of 400 officers and men. In memory of its achievement, Bolivar decreed that from henceforth it should be known as the "Battalion of Carabobo," with the privilege of forming part of the garrison of Caracás, and that, no matter how empty the treasury, its officers and men should always receive full pay and rations.

A year of garrison duty was sufficient to weary such restless spirits, and then the battalion, augmented by Devereux's few

remaining Irishmen, volunteered to take the field under Colonel Brand against the Spaniards in Maracaibo and Puerto Cabello, with whose surrender the war in Venezuela came to an end.

Whilst it was drawing to its close the handful of Englishmen still serving under MacIntosh in the "Albion Battalion," now almost entirely composed of natives, shared the triumphs and disasters of Sucre's campaign in the Andes. Again and again victorious, at the defeat of Enoi, when MacIntosh was wounded, several of them were captured, to be beheaded in the market-place of Pasto; and at Ambato (September 21, 1821) the whole battalion fell into the hands of the enemy. Exchanged for a Spanish battalion, it was the Albions who, marching through storm and rain over the slopes of Cotopaxi, when the issue of the conflict hung in the balance, won for Sucre by a wild charge the victory of Pinchincha (May 24, 1822), which laid the city of Quito at his feet.

Meanwhile Bolivar, unwearied and implacable whilst Spaniards yet held a yard of South American soil, was hurrying from the plains to take his part in the campaign which was to drive the last of them from the continent. With him came Sandes' Riflemen and a British detachment, and it was to the former that he owed the Pyrrhie victory of Bombonà (April 17, 1822). After repeated attempts to break the

Spanish centre, he was on the point of retiring, when the Rifles, forcing a way over the volcano of Pasto, fell on the enemy's right flank and drove him from a position almost impregnable, winning by the exploit the title of the "Battalion of Bombonà," with precedence as the "First Regiment of the Guard." It was to fight once again at the crowning victory of Ayacucho (December 9, 1824), when the combined forces of Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Buenos Ayres compelled the surrender of the last Spanish army in South America.

The work of the British was done, but few were they who lived to see its completion. Of the 6000 English, Scots, and Irishmen who left their homes to seek fame and glory and fortune on Venezuelan battlefields, less than 300 survived to receive the reward for service nobly rendered. Few returned home. Pensioned or awarded grants of money or land, most of of them chose to settle amongst the people for whom they had fought-the soldiers as miners, farmers, and petty traders, the officers in the employment of the newborn states, in whose service many of them rose to high rank. Disinterested amongst the self-seeking, disciplined where most were insubordinate, loyal and honest in world of chicane and deceit, educated in the midst of universal ignorance, they had lived down the jealousy and suspicion with which, as foreigners, they had been first

regarded, and the Patriot statesmen rejoiced to avail themselves of an experience of men and affairs such as few amongst them could command. But worth and honesty and experience would have availed little against prejudice and ignorance had it not been for Bolivar. The first to turn to Britain for help in the hour of direst need, the Liberator proved himself ever mindful of the strangers who answered his call. Better able than most to understand them, thanks to his travels in early life, familiar with their martial fame, he alone was able to appreciate their merits, and when all, save Paez, showed themselves indifferent or hostile, he was ever ready to sympathise with their sufferings, to listen to and, as far as lay in his power, to redress their grievances. It was from amongst the British officers, up to the day of his death, that he chose the most trusted members of his staff, treating them with an affection and respect repaid by life-long devotion. In his aide-de-camp and secretary, Daniel Florencio O'Leary, he found his Boswell, to whose 'Memoirs,' the only trustworthy record of his life and achievements, he owes not a little of his fame. To another, Colonel William Ferguson, cut down at Bogotà in mistake for his chief, he owed his escape from assassination.

which it is difficult to estimate, but never was it more nobly displayed than by their efforts to abate something of the savagery which made the war the most atrocious of modern times. Sharing neither the exasperation of the Royalists nor the vengeful hatred of the Republicans, with their coming the struggle began to lose something of its horror, and to them was mainly due the agreement between Bolivar and Morillo to adopt the usages of civilised warfare. Doomed themselves to death if captured, by express decree of King Ferdinand, to their intercession, alas! not always successful, hundreds of his soldiers owed both life and liberty, whose gratitude and admiration found halting expression when they spoke of the British as "Lions in battle, most merciful in victory."

With their memory time has dealt ungently. In the land of their birth the story of their sufferings, their achievements, and their heroism lies. buried deep in the pages of obscure chroniclers; whilst amongst the peoples whom they served, if Colombia be not unmindful, in Venezuela hatred of Great Britain has long effaced all thought of gratitude to those to whom she owes so much. But in Caracás familiar British names may still be read over store and wineshop, to remind the traveller that here yet live some who can claim descent from the heroes of Carabobo

Over and above their achieve ments in the battlefield, the British exercised an influence in the War of Independence and Boyaça.

A REVOLUTIONARY AFTERMATH.

SOME EXPERIENCES OF A MILITARY RIOT IN CHINA.

ONE of the almost inevitable consequences of any great national upheaval is a period of lawless disorder during the interval that is bound to elapse between the outgoing of the old order and the incoming of the new. In the case of the late revolution in China this phase was aggravated by the fact that the outbreak was premature. So much is admitted by responsible leaders of the movement. The effect of this was that whatever arrangements the Revolutionaries may have had in preparation for taking over the internal administration of the country, their plans were far from complete at the moment of the Manchu abdication, and quite inadequate to meet the situation which then arose. The result was chaos, immediate, widespread, and profound. The new order of things was brought into being by force of arms, and now at the end of April -the same power still reigns supreme throughout the land. Armed men are everywhere in the ascendant; if they are not armed soldiers, then they are armed robbers. More often than not, indeed, so nearly do the methods of one class resemble those of the other that the difference between them is hardly appreciated by the unfortunate people who suffer at their hands. With few exceptions, the stationing of troops in any district is regarded by

the inhabitants in the light of a public calamity.

Add to such conditions a lack of funds wherewith to satisfy the just demands of these hirelings-to whose exertions, after all, the existence of the Republic is mainly dueand it is not surprising that unrest and discontent are rife all through the provinces. Manifestations of this feeling occurred in many places during the early part of the yearnow among the soldiers who, having had no pay for months, proceeded to plunder the people; and again among the people, who, unable to endure so-called republican methods any longer, rose in their wrath and drove their oppressors elsewhere.

The most important military outbreak was at Peking at the end of February, when the whole of whole of one division, including most of the President's bodyguard, systematically looted the capital. Another uprising of some magnitude occurred on April 12 at Nanking. This eity figured prominently during the fighting of last November, at the end of which month it was captured by the Revolutionary army. It is situated on the south bank of the Yangtse river, some 200 miles from the sea, has a population of nearly half a million souls and a military garrison of 30,000 men.

I arrived there on the day

after the outbreak, and, finding the intramural railway reopened to traffic, took a train for San Pai Lou, the first station inside the walls. There on the platform I saw a very fat man sitting on a bench with his head between his hands, weeping bitterly. This proved to be the stationmaster. Gulping with grief, he showed me his office-the only room in the station. Everything movable was smashed to pieces, fixtures were destroyed, and the safe broken open and rifled of its contents. Bullet holes showed in the roof and walls, and fully accounted for the admission made by the few unarmed men composing the station guard, that they had cowered terror - stricken in a corner while the soldiers plundered the room.

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Near the station a dozen or more houses were burnt. A broad straight avenue, over a quarter of a mile long, leads down from there to the northwest entrance to the grounds in which the International Exhibition of 1910 was held. This street is lined with shops on both sides, some 400 in all. Every one of them had been looted and about half a dozen burnt. The heads of some of the delinquents hung to telephone poles, and their disembowelled bodies still lay open to the public gaze on the road. Inquiries at a number of the shops all elicited the same reply they had been cleaned out of all they owned that was portable and of any value. The procedure, too, was similar in each case the wooden

doors were burst in and half a dozen soldiers, firing their rifles through the walls and roof, had proceeded to ransack the place. Then others came afterwards, cleaning up whatever the first had left. Almost if not the only building in the street which had escaped was a chapel belonging to an American Mission.

Seeing a crowd gathered round a shop door, I went up and found an infuriated fieldofficer supported by a dozen of his men with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets searching a house for loot. The onlookers said the officer had lodged there previously, and that all his belongings had disappeared during the trouble of the night before. The occupant of the ground-floor was a barber, who loudly protested his innocence in spite of the "third degree" methods being used by the men to make him say what they wanted. Suddenly there was a shout from upstairs, and down the ladder leading to the second storey came tumbling several boxes and a couple of soldiers. Those below at once pounced on the various articles that fell out on the floor, and one by one they were held up arm-high for inspection. Among the barber's clothing were several things identified as his own by the officer, who stamped and swore and banged his sword on the floor. With this evidence there didn't look to be much chance for the barber. He was quickly pinioned by the soldiers, and, howling with terror, was led out into the

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