together, as we began to perceive,
seemed to sail round and round the enemy, pouring on them an incessant
cannonade, and excelling them in rapidity of fire and manoeuvring.
Some of the Chinese vessels appeared to me to present an appearance of
helplessness, and there was no indication of combination as amongst
their opponents. Not but what they blazed away valiantly enough, and
some of them had evidently given as good as they got, for more than
one Japanese vessel was in flames. Of course we could not identify
these ships, but we could make out that in numbers and armament they
were a fair match for the Chinese squadron. They appeared to pay
special attention to the two great Chinese ironclads, the _Chen-Yuen_
and _Ting-Yuen_, one of which at least had had her big guns, 37-ton
Krupps, silenced, though still contributing to the entertainment with
the quick-firing armament. Shortly after three, the _King-Yuen_, fired
by shells, began to burn fiercely; she showed through the smoke like a
mass of flame, and was evidently sinking, settling down on an even
keel. Three or four of the enemy circled round, plying her with shot
and shell. Finally, with a plunge she disappeared, and the immediate
darkening, as the smoke-clouds rolled in where the fierce blaze of
the burning wreck had been, was like the sudden drawing of a veil
over the spot where hundreds of men had met their simultaneous doom.
The cannonade slackened, but soon broke out again fiercely as ever.
About this time it seemed as if the Japanese flagship, _Matshushima_,
was about to share the same fate. She looked all in a blaze forward.
The fire, however, was got under, and later on she was taken out of
the action.

Meanwhile the Chinese ships had been forced still nearer to the land,
and the _Chao-Yung_, an absolute ruin, drifted helplessly ashore,
half a league from where we stood. By the aid of our glasses we could
perceive her condition clearly--her upper works knocked to pieces; her
decks, strewn with mutilated bodies, an indiscriminate mass of wreck
and carnage. Her crew were abandoning her, struggling to land as best
they could. Subsequently the _Yang-Wei_ went ashore similarly battered
to pieces and burning. She was much further off, and we made her out
less distinctly. On the Japanese side not one ship had sunk as far as
we had seen, and though the flagship and some of the smaller craft
were in an unenviable state, the attack was kept up with immense
spirit,