on the barrier; but _Opossum_, casting off her
boats, dashed up the right-hand channel. Now boats of all descriptions
raced up, each eager to be first, many a brave fellow being picked off
as they passed through the showers of shot hurled on them from the
Chinese batteries. The Chinese were showing themselves to be of sterner
stuff than many had supposed. The garrison of the hill battery fought
bravely.

Meantime the troops were climbing the heights, the admiral had landed,
and so had Commodore Elliot and many other naval officers, leading their
bluejackets. As the stormers got within fifty yards of the summit, the
garrison fired a volley, and then retreated down the hill; nor could the
fire of the marines, who had gained the fort, make them run. The fort
gained, the naval officers hurried down to their boats and pulled up
towards the junks, which, as the flotilla advanced, opened a heavy fire.
As the boats dashed alongside, the Chinamen invariably discharged a
round of grape, but generally too high to do damage; and the seamen
boarding under it, they leaped overboard and swam on shore. Then junk
after junk was set on fire and blown up. It being low tide, they were
nearly all on shore, and could not escape. The _Haughty_ ran stem on
into one, and crumpled her up as if she had been paper. Thus
seventy-two were either burnt or captured. Heavy firing was heard in
the distance. Commodore Keppel had meantime gone up through the
right-hand channel. His own steamer grounded, and so did the _Plover_;
and he, therefore, with seven boats of the _Calcutta, Bittern_, and
_Niger_, pulled on under the fire of the six-gun battery, and boarded a
big junk, which, when the boats were scarcely free of her, blew up. On
he went, right through the junks, till he came to an island causing two
narrow channels. One was thickly staked. Across the other were moored
twenty large junks, their guns so placed that they could sweep both
channels. In vain the commodore attempted to dash through with his
galley. Three boom-boats following took the ground. Grape, canisters,
and round shot came tearing among them. Numbers were struck. Major
Kearney, a volunteer, was torn to pieces; Barker, a midshipman of the
_Tribune_, was mortally wounded; the commodore's coxswain was killed,
and every man of his crew was struck. A shot came in right amidships,
cut one man in two, and took off the hand of another. Lieutenant Prince
Victor of Hohen